Losses jump more than 50 per cent at digital bank Monzo
Losses at digital bank Monzo widened to £47.2m last year, its annual report published today shows.
Losses increased 54 per cent from £30.5m the year previously.
Personnel expenses for the year ended 28 February jumped to £25.6m from £9.2m in 2018.
This reflects the company’s expansion, with more than 400 staff spread across its offices in London, Cardiff and Las Vegas.
Customer deposits increased 547 per cent per cent from £71.3m to £461.8m.
Lending rocketed from £200,000 to £19.2m.
Net interest income grew to £4.9m from £200,000 the year previously.
Monzo said this was because it had increased the amount of money it holds that is earning interest at central banks, and increased the number of customers using overdrafts.
Net fees and commission rose to £6.6m from £1.4m, due to more Atm fees earned abroad.
Chief executive Tom Blomfield said: “We’ve grown revenue considerably: we’ve just crossed £40m of annual run-rate revenue (based on May 2019 revenue), but there’s still plenty of work to do to get to profitability.”
Blomfield said around 30 per cent of active users deposit at least £1,000 per month, its definition of salaried, up from 13 per cent a year previously.
The company has been successful at winning new customers, attracted by features such as cheap foreign exchange rates, but has had a harder time persuading customers to use Monzo as their main bank account.