INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
challenger bank with over 4 million account holders, is taking a number of precautionary steps to help see it through the current
coronavirus downturn, including voluntary furloughs and its CEO forgoing a salary, A Technology News Room understands.In an internal
employees are being offered voluntary furloughing for two months, as part of the scheme rolled out by the U.K
Furlough ensures that employees still get paid even when work has decreased and that when things hopefully return to normal there is a job
to come back to.Although well capitalised, like other banks and fintechs, Monzo has seen customer card spend reduce at home and (of course)
abroad, meaning it is seeing less revenue from interchange fees
New account signups have also slowed, as has customer support requests
It therefore makes sense to utilise the furlough scheme to help protect jobs in the future when demand picks up again
By making it voluntary, it also means staff with kids to home school or loved ones to take care of, can use the option to hopefully make
their lives easier for the time being.Specifically, I understand Monzo is accepting up to 175 furlough applications in customer support, and
up to 120 applications from other parts of the business.Meanwhile, at least one other U.K
Starling has confirmed that it has put 41 staff on furlough (see statement from Starling founder Anne Boden below)
In contrast, Revolut tells A Technology News Room it has no current plans to do so
As already mentioned, the scheme is available to U.K
companies right across the board and several startups, including fintechs, have already applied furloughing as a pre-cautionary
measure.Lastly, it should be stressed that none of the above should impact customers at Monzo, which, as a digital bank, is pretty
well-positioned to operate during lockdown and with all staff already working from home
their salaries to ensure they get 100%
Most of these employees are relatively new to the bank and have not completed their training, so are unable to work from home
well-funded, our TV ad campaign is doing extremely well and we are still growing fast, adding new business and personal customers every day
