London-based Monument is the first challenger bank in the UK to focus on meeting the unmet demands of over 4 million clients ranging from professionals to entrepreneurs. Monument seems to be well-positioned and ready for its launch this summer.
£28M Series A funding
Monument raised £28M funding in a recent move, thereby completing one of the largest Series A funding rounds in banking or fintech in 2020/21. With this, the overall funding secured by the company accounts to £40M and makes it capable of building its technological and operational capabilities. Also, the company will focus on preparing for its launch. Despite this challenging environment caused by the pandemics, the Bank exceeded its Series A funding target sans the involvement of government schemes or public money, which is an exceptional achievement.
The investment comes from both new and existing investors. Monument’s investors include Eric Zinterhofer (a founding partner of Searchlight Capital), Rakesh Loonkar (one of Goldman Sachs’ “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs”), and Harry Handelsman (who has been behind some of the most iconic property developments in London).
Mintoo Bhandari, CEO and one of the founders of Monument, said: “We are very pleased and excited to have successfully completed our Series A funding round, exceeding targets, against such a challenging backdrop. We are truly thankful to our investors who have shown faith in the robustness of our business strategy, the strength of our team, and the clarity of our plans. Looking ahead, 2021 will be an even more significant year for Monument as we continue to build our bank, expand our capabilities, launch, and serve the mass affluent, and provide them the level of client service they deserve.”
Gears up for launch!
Founded by Mintoo Bhandari and Vikash Gupta, Monument is well advanced and is in the last stage of the licencing process’ – “mobilisation”. In this phase, it is finishing building the infrastructure and processes, expanding its team, and demonstrating to the regulators that it is ready for launch. When the restriction on the licence is lifted, it will be able to scale up deposit taking, lending and begin operating as a fully-fledged bank.
Post-launch, Monument will continue to develop its cloud-based SaaS-enabled IT architecture. It plans to be the only bank to offer its clients an entirely digital journey for buy-to-let and property investment lending of up to £2M. It offers attractive, top quartile savings rates and its model is designed to reward loyalty. Unlike most banks, existing customers who deposit money for a subsequent fixed term will get a better rate than a new customer. Also, an existing borrower who renews the loan will get a favourable rate.
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