Our social programme
At Monzo our mission is to make money work for everyone. That’s why we’ve built new ways to support people who need some extra help to understand and control their finances.
We’ve focused on supporting our customers' needs, as well as making our app as accessible as possible. But we also want to support those people who don’t bank with us, by driving up standards across the banking industry, making sure that as many people as possible get the support they need.
Making money work for everyone
Our responsibilities and goals as a company go beyond our mission, and are wider than banking. We hold ourselves to high standards of ethical behaviour, starting with the way we support our own employees, by creating an environment where everyone belongs. We believe that as a business, we have a set of wider responsibilities to society, to make the world a better place, and to help our customers do the same.
And we don’t want you to just take our word for it. We’re focused on making simple, practical changes that support people, and we’ll judge our efforts using independent standards where possible. We also work in partnership with charities and other organisations to campaign for the change we want to see, whether it’s protecting the environment, or promoting financial inclusion.
What we’re working on right now
These are some of the things that we’re working on right now. If you’d like to know more or you’d like to give us any feedback, you can email us at socialprogramme@monzo.com
Our impact on the environment
We’ve built a bank with a comparatively low environmental footprint. We’re branchless, digital, and we don’t invest in fossil fuel based energy companies. However, our operations still contribute to global climate change, and we know that as we grow as a business, our environmental impact will grow too. It’s our responsibility to minimise and offset our carbon emissions and take care of our planet.
Our campaign to improve gambling protections for everyone in the UK
In 2018 we researched, developed and launched a feature that allows our customers to block gambling transactions. It was the first of its kind, offering a friction based banking tool to help people with gambling addiction to self exclude. Now around 60% of banks offer this feature, and over 300,000 Monzo customers have used it. This year, we’ve teamed up with charities, academics and NHS clinicians to ask the government to make sure everyone can access a gambling block, no matter who they bank with.
Our focus on mental health support
At Monzo we know that your mental health profoundly impacts how you manage your money. As the long term effects of the pandemic are emerging, we’re expecting to have more conversations with our customers about how their financial situation is impacted by mental health problems. We’ve worked with the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute to improve our accessibility for customers with mental health problems, by becoming the first bank to take part in its Mental Health Accessible Lite programme.
Everything else that we do
Being ethical and socially responsible takes many forms. We set out below how we’re tackling a range of issues, such as how we support our employees, how we protect our customers and support their needs, and how we make our product as accessible as possible.
Supporting all our customers
We have a dedicated team to make sure Monzo understands, considers and advocates for the needs of all our customers, especially those in difficult or different circumstances who are more likely to have problems with their money. We offer specialist support and tools designed with that in mind.
Accessibility
We work hard to reduce the barriers people face to accessing our product and service. Making money work for everyone can’t be done without making sure Monzo works for people with disabilities and those who’ve struggled with banking in the past.
Financial Inclusion
We believe everyone deserves access to financial services that suit them, but today, too many people are excluded by largely invisible barriers to entry - confusing language, hidden fees and inaccessible products - thanks to a system that isn’t designed with their needs in mind.
Speaking out
Standing up for what we believe in is important to us at Monzo. We want to speak out about the issues that we care about. The issues that affect our customers, and our team.
Our Environment
Although we're a branchless digital bank our operations still contribute to global climate change. So it's our responsibility to minimise our carbon emissions and take care of our planet.
Our People
To achieve our mission, working at Monzo must work for everyone. We strive for an equitable, high-performing workplace which gives people from all backgrounds the support they need to thrive, grow and do the best work of their lives.
Our Business Practices
Monzo is a socially responsible business. We invest customer deposits safely and ethically, we do not engage in any artificial tax planning, and we have a zero tolerance approach to modern slavery and human trafficking.
Our initiatives
We've worked on some industry leading initiatives as part of our work on our social programme. Read more about them below.
The Gambling Block
Around 2 million people in Britain experience harm caused by gambling – like getting into debt, losing your job, falling out with family and friends, and more. We launched our gambling block back in 2018. And today, over 275,000 people are using it.
Share With Us
Share With Us is a way for our customers to tell us what additional support they need. If there’s something customers want to let us know about their circumstances, they can let us know discreetly, with no phone calls involved and no chat log history. This helps us get them specialist support, often in difficult or distressing circumstances, such as domestic, financial and economic abuse.
Our Tone of Voice
Finance isn’t as complex as banks make it sound, and dealing with money shouldn’t be a headache. So, to make sure we explain things in a way everyone can understand, we use the language our customers use, even when things get technical.
