Monzo and beyond: How TS Anil put banking in a new light

theguardian.com:

Sitting in Monzo’s headquarters, just a stone’s throw from Liverpool Street station in London, its chief executive, TS Anil, is unwittingly defying fintech stereotypes.

While he may have swapped suit and tie for blue jeans when he took the helm of the digital bank in 2020, he carries an air of modest professionalism that might be more at home in NatWest’s nearby London office than a unicorn startup trying to disrupt the industry.

That is partly the product of nearly 27 years in the sector, spanning big names such as Citi, Standard Chartered and Visa in markets including India, Japan and the US, which makes him one of the most experienced bosses leading a British fintech company. And unlike his nearest rivals at Starling and Revolut, he is the only non-founder to be running one of Britain’s first wave of so-called neobanks, signalling that the capital’s once cutting-edge startups may be beginning to mature.

Seven years since its founding in 2015, Monzo has gone from a scrappy newcomer luring millennials with its sleek app and hot-pink prepaid debit card to a fully licensed bank with more than £4.4bn in deposits.

It has yet to turn a profit, but following in the footsteps of its two closest competitors, Monzo is aiming to break even on a monthly basis later this year as Anil predicts another surge in revenues, up from £79m for the year to February 2021.

The firm was last valued at $4.5bn (£3.4bn), after a $600m fundraising late last year. While that is still significantly behind Revolut’s $33bn, Anil says he is comforted by the number of active users among his 5.7 million customer base, with approximately 3 million opening the app 17-18 times a week.

While rumours about a stock market listing continue to fly, Anil, as might be