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THE BIG INTERVIEW It’s a vision thing
Scott Thompson caught up with Tom Blomfield, CEO of mobile challenger bank, Mondo, to hear how his venture is taking a fresh look at customers’ relationship with their money.
preview saw 3,000 users test the app, give feedback and spend more than £1.5 million. Where are you in terms of the
S process.
TB: I think things will always go wrong. The pace at which we’re moving means that on occasion there will be little glitches and on this occasion it was an hour or so where people didn’t get the right link. Effectively we hit a rate limit on a third party service, because so many people were signing up and going through the process. So we moved that in house. We apologise to anyone who was affected but we also emphasise that this is a Beta trial and not a public launch; it is a trial process for us and we are committed to releasing stuff early. As a result, there might be glitches but the end result will be a much, much better overall service for customers. With a traditional bank
www.ibsintelligence.com © IBS Intelligence 2016 nationwide public Beta?
Tom Blomfield: We’re inviting people across the UK to download our app and use our MasterCard debit card. We’ve posted out around 2,000 cards. We’re really trying to ramp up the number of cards we’re sending out although we’re constrained by supplies at the moment. We have a lot of people on the waiting list but they will move up pretty quickly now.
ST: There were some high profile teething problems following the launch of the public Beta, in relation to the authentication
cott Thompson: Your London-based Alpha
you would be waiting three or four years. It’s a case of striking the balance between moving quickly enough and making sure everything’s working and on this occasion we got the balance wrong.
ST: Can you give an idea as to customer profiles?
TB: We surveyed the users from the Alpha trial and the profile was, 32 year old male using an iPhone. With the Beta it has definitely broadened out; we’re across the UK now, we’ve seen it taken up in Spain and Ireland as well. We grew our waiting list around 40% in a few days; it has been crazy.
ST: Am I right in saying your offering will eventually comprise a current account within the app? But until Mondo gets its banking licence, it’s only available on iPhone, and only works with
reloadable MasterCard debit cards.
TB: It’s a prepaid MasterCard. We’re working on Android right now and will hopefully have that by the summer. We are speaking to the regulator on a weekly basis and hope to get a full licence by the end of the year and a restricted licence by summer.
ST: Mondo is preparing to stand or fall on its ability to provide a better user experience than people are used to from mobile banking, since its account won’t pay interest on credit balances or
offer cashback. What features will be on offer?
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