Mobile banking startup Monese is to move into the banking-as-a-service space on a new funding round from Investec, who will adopt the BaaS platform to deliver its digital current account offering in the UK
London and Tallinn-based startup Monese targets expats and immigrants who typically struggle to get a traditional bank account.
The new BaaS platform, which arrives following recent deals by Monese with Mastercard and core banking provider Thought Machine, will be used by Investec for its private client transactional banking service and in the launch of a new business current account offering for private companies. Over time, Investec also expects BaaS will allow the bank to consolidate its retail savings products.
Investec also leads the first close of Monese’s ongoing Series C, bringing the total raised by the firm to $162 million.
Norris Koppel, founder and CEO of Monese, says: “In our experience core banking providers only cover a small part of the products and services that are required to meet the demands of modern digital banking and so our BaaS offering is completely end to end - it’s everything you would need to launch a current account from scratch.
“There is a huge appetite amongst traditional and non-traditional companies to reduce the transformation time from years to months or even weeks. With this platform, we believe we can help others take their digital banking offering to a totally new level, get them to market as quickly as possible and get them ahead of consumer demand.”