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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.
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.