Britain's $4.5 billion digital bank Monzo debuts investments feature
Monzo, the $4.5 billion digital challenger bank, launched a feature that lets users make investments —marking its first foray into the massive financial investment market.
The feature, called Investments, will allow Monzo's customers to invest in a number of funds managed by asset management giant BlackRock. CNBC got an early look at the product in Monzo's headquarters last week. It's set to start rolling out Tuesday, and will allow users to invest with as little as £1.
The move will put Monzo into competition with large established banks like Chase, which offers online investment management through its Nutmeg subsidiary; asset management firms; and younger startup competitors such as Chip, Moneybox, and Plum.
Monzo already lets its customers put their money into interest-yielding savings pots. But this is the first time the company is making a move into the world of investing.
The application process is pretty straightforward. Customers will be invited to a waitlist to access the product. Eligible users who've joined the waitlist will then get invited to create an investment pot.
After that, they'll be taken through to a set of screens where they learn about the product and get to choose from three funds handpicked by BlackRock based on different risk levels.
The choice is split between three funds managed by BlackRock: Careful, Balanced and Adventurous. At the «careful» end of the scale is a low-risk, low-return fund; the «balanced» fund has medium high risk and reward; while the «adventurous» one is about higher-risk allocations with much larger potential returns.
TS Anil, Monzo's co-founder and CEO, said the company had worked to bring about an investment feature to tackle a lack of knowledge from Brits when it comes
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