Monzo Looks to Copy Revolut by Preparing to Launch a UK Mobile Service
Digital banking company Monzo has revealed that they’ve begun to “explore” how they could launch their own mobile provider in the UK, which seems likely to echo the approach that rival banking and money management app Revolut recently began to take (here); although we’re still waiting for the latter to take their training wheels off.
“When we heard from our customers that mobile contracts can be a pain point, we set out to explore how we could do this the Monzo way,” said the banking company to the FT (paywall), before adding that they are now in the “early stages” of developing such a proposal.
The newspaper indicates that this would take the form of a digital SIM and offering monthly contracts, which we take to mean a eSIM-only proposition like Revolut’s approach. This would inevitably take the form of a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement, although it’s not yet known whether they’d be working with EE, O2 or VodafoneThree to deliver this.
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The UK market currently seems to have no shortage of virtual mobile providers, which would normally make it difficult for new entrances to establish themselves. But Monzo, not unlike Revolut, would benefit from being able to promote this service to an already well-established customer base – possibly alongside some unique incentives.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Monzo has really become “enshitified”. I’ve just switched to starling. The monzo app had approximately 7 upsells on the main page. Insurance, plus, credit flex, offers etc. Just annoying really.
I guess this is the next step?
This is what drove me away from Revolut ages ago – open the app and you’re greeted with stuff I don’t care about, like crypto stuff and a map showing where there are nearby rewards (?), among other meaningless stuff. I’ve never used Monzo but it’s sad to see that’s the direction they’re taking.
Looks like I’ve made the right decision when I chose Starling (fingers crossed they stay that way).
I’ve only ever used revoult for virtual cards. I left Starling when they declined me for a savings account – so I went and opened one with First Direct.
Lucky, I wanted to switch to Starling for fee-free international withdrawals but my application was declined. Sadly the fruits of lax controls by challenger banks.
But Monzo pay links are great, wished more banks had something similar
I mean ..surely the price point won’t be the deciding factor.
You can get unlimited everything for about £15 via Smarty.
I’m just waiting for the Revolut option that had inclusive roaming in the US..
I am going to switch to Revolut from O2 only if they also offer an international calls to EU bundle and of course include US roaming like O2 does.
If I didn’t already have a good deal, I’d switch to them on Sim only if the plans were even half way reasonable and included say 10GB EU roaming. The market sucks out there, going through price comparison sites is the only way to get a sensible deal directly via the big networks then the price being increased each year and then also at the end of contract.. it’s a mess.
True smarty and similar exist but the issue I have with them is trust, my mobile number is TFA for some things and I absolutely cannot do without it, aside from direct with the big networks Monzo are probably the only folks I’d trust. I know anything they sell will be secured and reasonably supported.
Staying with Lebara due to India roaming.
I cannot see Monzo offering that.