Fresh from receiving a restricted banking licence from UK regulators, challenger bank Mondo is raising a further £15-£20 million in funding and embarking on a recruitment drive as it prepares for life as a full bank.
In a blog post on the Website of the app-only bank, Mondo CEO Tom Blomfield points to the restrictions imposed by its new banking licence - the main one being that it can only hold a maximum of £50,000 of deposits in total.
The intention of the restricted licence is to allow new banks to test systems with live payment networks before fully launching to the public.
"We’ve got up to 12 months to get the restrictions lifted," says Blomfield. "So we’re currently aiming to launch a full current account in Q1 or Q2 of 2017.
He says company engineers are currently focussed on building connections to the main payment networks of MasterCard, Bacs and Faster Payments, with live testing expected to take place over the coming months.
Alongside this effort, the new bank is looking for a head of compliance, head of risk and head of lending, as well as recruiting for new staff in engineering and customer support positions.
On the funding front,Blomfield says Mondo is aiming to raise further capital, up to a maximum of £20 million - including a "significant" element of crowdfunding.
Mondo has so far raised £9 million, of which £1 million was generated in a record-breaking one minute and 36 seconds on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.