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Hello fintech friends,
This week Monzo fully launched in Spain. In a LinkedIn post the bank announced: “The waitlist has been lifted on Monzo in Spain 🚀”
With Revolut launching in so many markets, we’ve lost sight of how rare it is, and how hard, for banks to truly localise for new markets, especially where the language, norms and expectations are different.
While free banking is usual in the UK, in Spain traditional banks charge a monthly or quarterly account maintenance fee unless certain conditions are met. €20 a month or €60 a quarter is not uncommon. In Spain, Monzo offers free banking. There is also an integration with Bizum, the local account-to-account payment solution, and 4% interest on savings pots opened this year.
Monzo is serious about Spain. An article in Cinco Días reports that the bank has:
80 employees in Spain
An office in Madrid
A technology centre in Barcelona
A dedicated Spanish general manager (Francisco Sierra)
This is all part of a market expansion strategy that differs from Revolut’s, and it shows that neobanks are not all the same. They may all be mobile-first and lack branches, but as they grow they can develop in quite different ways.
Revolut’s approach means it can move quickly, and that has shown up in its valuation of over $100bn. Monzo is opting for depth instead. When Monzo enters a new market it builds a presence on the ground. It wants to run local activations. It wants close relationships with small businesses. It wants consumers to buy into the Monzo brand.
Investors have been frustrated by Monzo’s slow(er) growth. Yet over the long term, building a real presence on the ground may prove more fruitful. That’s not to say it’ll be easier: alongside Revolut, N26 operates in Spain, and the wider banking market is competitive.
It also feels like we have come full circle.
Before the Global Financial Crisis of the late 2000s, many UK banks offered services in non-English-speaking European markets. Across the board they pulled back to focus on their home market, in the face of tighter regulation and concerns over returns on investment.
While the legacy UK banks have doubled down on their home market, Monzo is, as ever, a bit different. Spain is its second launch market of the year, after Ireland in H1. And the bank ends its LinkedIn post by asking “where shall we go next?”, so it seems more markets will follow.
-Matt
The Rundown
🏦 M&A
Guidewire agreed to buy London-based insurance pricing software firm hyperexponential for $1.7bn in cash plus up to $400m tied to recurring revenue targets.
Liberis and Qred completed their merger after approval from Sweden's financial regulator.
Amsterdam-based identity verification firm Fourthline completed its merger with Spanish biometrics company Veridas.
💸 Fundraises
Belgian startup Ravical raised a €15.3m seed round led by MMC Ventures, with Lakestar, Pitchdrive and Shapersalso participating.
LO:TECH raised a $12m Series A led by MMC, with Faction, 13 Books Capital and Atka, for infrastructure that runs trading around the clock across traditional markets, digital assets and prediction markets.
i23, the AI insurance broker founded by former UK Treasury minister Bim Afolami, raised £4.9m in a seed round co-led by Four Cities Capital, with Outward VC, Seedcamp and Insiders Ventures also participating.
Covalent Equity Partners made a growth investment of undisclosed size in AML Analytics, which tests anti-money-laundering systems for more than 50 supervisors and 1,450 financial institutions.HM Treasury doubled the bank corporation tax surcharge from 3% to 6% from 1 January 2027 for 15 months, falling back to 3% on 1 April 2028.
🚀 Product Launches
Monzo launched in Spain, with free personal, joint, under-18, business and savings accounts carrying Spanish IBANs and Bizum, under the licence it holds from the Central Bank of Ireland.
Deutsche Börse opened round-the-clock trading in DAX 40 shares. Once the main Frankfurt market closes, including at night and at weekends, trades move to its 360X venue and settle into existing Clearstream accounts.
Checkout.com began a phased rollout of Visa Payment Passkey to merchants in the UK and Europe, so shoppers confirm card payments with a fingerprint or face scan instead of a one-time code. Adyen also added the same option for UK merchants on the same day.
Mollie released plugins for Claude and ChatGPT and an open MCP server, so merchants can create payment links, manage subscriptions and draft invoices without leaving their chatbot.
Stripe launched Stripe Treasury in the UK, so businesses can receive, hold and convert sterling, euros and dollars, send payouts to more than 160 countries and spend with Stripe cards from the same dashboard they use to take payments.
Revolut added Revolut Pay as an account-to-account checkout option at Just Eat in the UK and Ireland.
MediaMarkt and Saturn rolled out Computop's SoftPOS in more than 400 German stores, so staff can accept card payments on phones and tablets while on the shop floor.
Trading 212 deployed the AI compliance platform of London regtech Cardamon — founded in 2025 by former Revolut product leads — across its products and markets.
Vivid launched card-linked services with Visa that shows business customers where a company card is stored online, meaning they can stop unwanted subscription charges.
🏛️ Policy & Regulation
HM Treasury doubled the bank corporation tax surcharge from 3% to 6% from 1 January 2027 for 15 months, falling back to 3% on 1 April 2028.
The ECB selected Nexi and Deutsche Telekom as the first network provider for the digital euro, with Telefónica and Indra as the second from May 2027. Both need to be ready by 2029 in case EU lawmakers approve the digital euro and it is issued that year.
The EU and Canada agreed at their Montréal summit to work towards linking their instant payment systems. No timeline was set.
HM Treasury named Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest and RBC Capital Markets as lead managers for DIGIT, its pilot digital gilt, which it expects to issue by the first quarter of 2027.
Switzerland's Federal Council opened a consultation that would make payment providers show merchants the service charge, interchange fee and scheme fee separately, before and during a contract.
🗂️ Other News
Christine Lagarde told the ECB Governing Council that she will step down as president on 7 February 2027, before the end of her term.
The Bank of England ordered a review of how Revolut approves new products (reported in the Financial Times).
In more Revolut news, the neobank received registration from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, becoming the country’s 27th registered bank and its first digital bank.
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Thanks everyone for reading. Have a great day and see you next week.
