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Hello Fintech Friends,
Last week, Monzo announced they had hit the milestone of 1 million business accounts. It’s the first UK digital bank to achieve this milestone, which is important for what it says about the neobank business model in the UK. It shows that the lack of physical branches isn’t an issue for many businesses — especially those that Monzo targets: sole traders, freelancers, and small private limited companies.
The growth in business accounts has been especially strong in the past two years:
March 2020: Monzo Business launches in the UK
October 2024: 500,000+ business customers
August 2026: 1 million+ business customers
It’s highly likely that business account holders also have personal accounts with Monzo. There are more than 15 million Monzo personal account holders in the UK. In the Monzo app it’s easy to add a business account and get going within minutes. Therefore, the bank has been successful in up-selling its business account offering. Essentially, users want to extend the Monzo UI and customer experience beyond their day-to-day spending.
However, a million business accounts are not the same as a million primary business banking relationships. Much like with personal accounts, it’s not uncommon for companies to maintain multiple accounts across different banks. The challenge for Monzo is to widen the product offering so more companies see Monzo as their primary business banking provider. Announcing a million business accounts will help add credibility as a serious business banking option.
The UK has a formalised account switching program known as CASS (the Current Account Switching Service), which tracks when consumers or businesses use the system to move from one bank to another. H1 2026 data does not cover business accounts as a whole, but small business and charity switchers were only just over 16,000 accounts compared to almost 600,000 personal account switches.
Monzo business customers are often new companies. One in five newly formed companies turn to Monzo. To get the next million businesses onboard, Monzo will need to grow with their customers. As startups scale, their needs change. Monzo is a trusted brand, but widening the product offering in a way that keeps businesses growing with the bank over years — and at the same time not changing the DNA of what makes the bank so appealing — will be the next challenge.
Please find another week of fintech news below!
— Matt Jones
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The Rundown
🏦 M&A
Accenture will acquire IBM’s stake in their UniCredit technology venture.
AutoRek acquired London-based regtech Grath. The company will add Grath’s AI-powered reconciliation and compliance technology to its platform.
Danish spend-management fintech Pleo is facing sale speculation.
🚀 Product Launches
Visa and Corpay expanded their European partnership to develop new commercial payment and mobility solutions.
Robinhood launched crypto trading in the UK app — utilising recently acquired Bitstamp’s technology.
UK rent-rewards fintech Brickk partnered with TransUnion to help renters build their credit histories through verified rent payments.
Zopa Bank partnered with Hive to offer financing that lets UK homeowners spread the cost of energy-efficiency improvements.
Paysera made bank transfers free for merchants in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (via PIS).
Wero delayed its Luxembourg launch to September due to additional testing requirements.
💸 Fundraises
UK core-banking fintech 10x Banking raised £40m from by AshGrove Capital. The company became EBITA-positive in the past 12 months.
Berlin spend-management fintech Moss raised a €30m Series C led by Portage, with participation from existing investor Cherry Ventures. The new round values the company at €1bn — Europe’s newest unicorn.
Stockholm-based Quartr raised $18m in a round led by Altos Ventures, with participation from SEB. The company is a leading provider of IR data.
🏛️ Policy & Regulation
Revolut secured a French banking licence.
The UK FCA is preparing a framework for tokenised gold as Britain looks to develop regulated markets for tokenised real-world assets.
Stripe-owned Bridge joined the EU’s MiCA register as the 42nd authorised stablecoin issuer under the bloc’s new crypto regime.
The OCC rejected Dutch neobank bunq’s US bank-charter application, complicating its plans to expand directly into the US banking market.
🗂️ Other News
The Financial Times looks at the growing embrace of blockchain by mainstream financial institutions.
More than $30m has been stolen in violent crypto attacks this year, according to Chainalysis — France is a major hotspot.
The FCA welcomed five fintechs into its Scale-up Unit (including Zilch). The unit provides dedicated regulatory support to fast-growing UK financial firms.
As discussed at the top of this newsletter, Monzo passed one million business accounts.
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Fun Stuff
The FIFA World Cup ended only last month but after a short break football will be back again soon. The Premier League returns a week on Friday. This will be the 35th season of the Premier League, and only six teams have played every season so far.
These are Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur. That said, Tottenham did come perilously close to relegation last season, and they’ll be hoping for a much better performance this time.
This will be the first season not featuring one of the big five managers of the Premier League era: Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, José Mourinho, Jürgen Klopp, and Pep Guardiola. Many pundits are saying that this could be one of the most unpredictable seasons for a long time.
Meanwhile my team, Cardiff City, will be playing in the Championship — the league below the Premier League. Hopefully we will be taking on the giants of football next season!
Thanks everyone for reading. Have a great day and see you next week.
