Today, Mastercard and Monese, the European banking service provider, announced a new multi-year strategic partnership to further enhance local banking services for the underserved across Europe, with Monese becoming a principal Mastercard issuer.
With its multi-currency accounts that are available in 31 countries, Monese’s new partnership with Mastercard provides its customers access to Mastercard’s global acceptance network, allowing them to spend at the millions of locations worldwide at which Mastercard is accepted.
Monese and Mastercard are closely aligned in their commitment to financial inclusion. Many of Monese’s customers are working in the gig economy, are self-employed, or living in a different European country to that in which they were born, and are not therefore well served by mainstream banks. The two companies aim to ensure that these consumers have access to banking services and electronic payments which may otherwise be difficult or impossible for them to access.
Under this partnership, the two companies will deliver industry leading card functionality and innovative payments features within the Monese app to meet the rapidly developing needs of underserved consumers across Europe.
The partnership supports Monese’s commitment to provide a more localised product offering to consumers across existing European markets, as well as the strengthening its core product offering and capabilities.
Monese Founder and CEO Norris Koppel said: “We’re excited to announce this partnership with Mastercard today and build on our long and successful relationship. This significant deal further develops an ambitious localisation strategy we have been pursuing for a number of years and positions us well for the next stage of our growth in the UK and European markets. We are committed to delivering more local experiences for our customers across multiple European markets, as well as making it easier for those who have previously been underserved by traditional banks to manage their money. We are delighted to have partners such as Mastercard who are aligned to this vision.”
Mastercard’s European President, Mark Barnett added “Mastercard has an ongoing commitment to bringing the underserved into the digital and financial economy and to that end we are delighted to be the partner of choice of partners like Monese. As we build on our partnership, we look forward to bringing more people into the financial system as Monese continues to increase its presence and offering across Europe.”
So far this year, Monese has launched two new local country-IBANs and a cash top-up capability in multiple European markets, critical account functionalities that provide its European customers with a multi-product feature local banking experience. In July, Monese became the first European neobank to offer French IBANs to its customers. Local IBANs make it easy for customers in these countries to do local transactions, such as receiving their salaries directly into their Monese accounts, as foreign IBANs are not always accepted by employers.
In July 2020, Monese more than doubled its cash top-up network by launching thousands of new locations in Europe via a partnership with Paysafe. Cash top-up functionality is another key element that customers expect from their primary account. Together with Monese’s Post Office and PayPoint partnerships in the UK, Monese has created one of the largest cash networks in Europe which enables Monese customers to top up cash at over 87,000 locations.
The company now has one of the largest ranges of local IBANs and cash loading capabilities in Europe and intends to launch additional IBANs in Europe in the coming months.