Monzo Steers Customers to Backup Bank Amid Technical Outage
British neobank Monzo was sending customers to its backup bank Wednesday (Aug. 19) morning as it dealt with an outage. “We’ve identified some issues affecting Monzo and activated Monzo Stand-in, our fully independent backup bank,” the bank said in a post on X. “As a result, you can still make card payments, withdraw cash, freeze your […] The post Monzo Steers Customers to Backup Bank Amid…
British neobank Monzo was directing customers to its backup bank on Wednesday morning as the primary service experienced technical difficulties. During an X post, Monzo announced that it had activated Monzo Stand-in, its independent backup bank to ensure customers could continue with card payments, cash withdrawals, freezing cards, sending and receiving transfers, and more.
They assured that they were working rapidly to resolve the issue and restore full service. However, the BBC reported that some customers found Monzo Stand-in also had issues, preventing them from using their cards. GBN stated that Santander customers were facing a separate technical problem when attempting to withdraw money from ATMs.
Founded in 2015, Monzo holds banking licenses in the U.K. and Ireland, with a customer base of 16 million individuals and 1 million businesses. The company has been aggressively targeting new customers, as reported by the Financial Times in May. Monzo spent 29.5 million pounds on its "refer a friend" program in the 12 months leading up to March, marking a nearly 40% increase from the same period a year earlier.
Marketing expenses also rose to 143 million pounds during the same period, according to the report. Financial industry analyst John Cronin commented that Monzo's referral spending was "staggering," emphasizing that the company was investing heavily in growth, adopting standard tech practices. In the broader digital banking landscape, PYMNTS Intelligence research indicates that digital bank users are increasingly favoring mobile wallets, with 44.6% of digital bank customers preferring them over the 22.7% of consumers overall.
This trend suggests that banks, merchants, and payment providers may find it easier to introduce new payment options to digital bank users, given their familiarity with login-based checkout and tokenized credentials. The article "Monzo Steers Customers to Backup Bank Amid Technical Outage" was originally published on PYMNTS.com.
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