Monzo, with its first year of profit behind it, wants to be taken seriously

The British digital bank has enlisted the help of Morgan Stanley ahead of its long-rumored IPO.

5/22/25 6:29AM

The UK doesn’t have a long list of tech giants to trumpet, but one fintech name has reached corporate nirvana. Digital bank Monzo now sits proudly in the pantheon of brands so ingrained in UK culture as to become fully fledged verbs — as in, “I’ll Monzo you for the meal” — with 1 in 5 British adults reportedly using the online bank.

Now, Monzo is getting ready to graduate from successful startup to corporate behemoth. The 10-year-old company is said to be working with US giant Morgan Stanley to meet investors ahead of a long-awaited £6 billion IPO that could come as soon as the start of next year — though which side of the Atlantic the listing will land on is still up for debate.

Growing up

While its bright colorful cards, cavalier use of emojis, app-first approach, and budgeting tools have worked well to make the app-based bank popular with younger customers, CEO TS Anil is at pains to point out that Monzo’s demographic is shifting. At a recent talk in London with TechCrunch, the industry veteran announced that the median age of its customer base is now 34, adding that the bank even has “hundreds of customers” in their 90s, as well.

The business itself is maturing, too, having posted its first year of net profit in 2024.

Monzo profit and loss chart — Sherwood News

From 2016 to 2023, Monzo racked up more than £575 million in losses. Last year, the bank managed to get into the black for the first time, posting £8.7 million in net profit after it added 2.3 million more customers and revenues leaped 2.5x to £880 million, per its latest annual report.

In the same TechCrunch interview, Anil balked at the idea that Monzo had become a “legacy player” in the space. But with the company reportedly looking to attract more corporate clients, grow its mortgages offering, and expand into traditional products like pensions, it’s hard to see Monzo keeping some of the fun “edge” that helped it get its start.

When faced with the chance of being cool, profitable, and innovative, maybe banks can only pick two.

Max Knoblauch10/24/25

Premium seats help push airlines higher following third-quarter results

Shares of American Airlines are climbing toward the carrier’s best trading day since August 12, when ultra-budget rival Spirit issued its initial warning about its ability to survive. American’s shares are up more than 7% on Friday afternoon.

Investors’ optimism comes a day after American posted a better-than-expected full-year earnings forecast. In a call with investors, American said that it’s ramping up its premium cabin offerings.

“Our ability to grow capacity in premium markets will be further supported as we take delivery of new aircraft and reconfigure our existing fleet. These efforts will allow us to grow our premium seats at nearly two times the rate of main cabin seats,” CEO Robert Isom said. American CFO Devin May said that nose-to-tail retrofits of certain wide-body jets will bump the number of premium seats available on those planes by 25%.

Extra legroom has been a boon for major carriers, particularly this quarter. Delta Air Lines said its premium product revenue grew 9% in Q3, compared to a 4% drop in economy seat revenue. Similarly, United Airlines said its premium revenue grew 6%, outpacing economy. Shares of both airlines were up more than 3% on Friday.

Carriers with less exposure to first- and business-class tickets like Southwest Airlines and JetBlue didn’t see the same amount of momentum on the day.