Monzo Bank, one of the highest profile online lenders in the UK, has pumped €4 million into its newly formed Irish subsidiary and appointed a high-powered board of directors, new company documents show.
Monzo Bank Holding Group Limited, which is based in London, put the money into an entity called MBEU Designated Activity Company, which was incorporated in August of this year. It comes just a few months after Monzo’s chief executive, TS Anil, said that the company was in the midst of setting up its EU base in Ireland. At the launch of the company’s annual report in June, Mr Anil said that “Ireland will act as our gateway to European markets, and we’re in the early stages of setting up an Irish office”.
He added:, “We believe every part of the world needs a Monzo so we’re focused on expanding our offering, building strategies to disrupt the US with a first-class leadership team in place.”
Since then the company has set up a new company and appointed a number of experienced financial industry figures as directors. One of the directors is Peter Rossiter, a former banker who previously worked in chief risk officer roles with Citibank, IBRC, Allied Irish Bank and Starling Bank. Mr Rossiter is currently a member of the board of The Rehab Group.
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Another director, Michael Carney, is formerly chief executive of Stripe Technology Europe. Company documents show that he stepped down as director of two of Stripe’s Irish-registered companies in August. According to his LinkedIn page he served in the Stripe role until August 2024.
The third director is Valerie Dias, non-executive director at Monzo who previously worked as a senior executive with Visa Europe.
As reported in The Irish Times, Monzo also recently hired Nicola O’Brien, the former chief financial officer of PTSB, to a senior executive role, and it has been engaging extensively with the Central Bank of Ireland as it seeks the licence needed to operate in the Republic and passport services across the EU.
Monzo, which competes with other online banks such as Starling and Revolut, reached 10 million customers in August and now has more than 450,000 business customers in the UK, according to its own figures. In its most recent financial reports the company had a pretax profit of £15.4 million (€18.3m) for the 13 months through March. That compared with a £116 million loss a year earlier after its revenue rose to £880 million. During that period the company loaned £1.4 billion to its customers, a rise of 84 per cent.
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