Making Monzo Irish: The Playbook for a More Human Digital Bank | Monzo Bank Europe | Elaine Deehan [EP. 321]

[00:00:00] Elaine Deehan: From the moment we got our banking license back in December, that was, I guess there was a lot of euphoria, excitement,

[00:00:07] Elaine Deehan: but the amount of work that was ongoing in parallel in terms of talking to Irish customers, doing research, everything from surveys to in-person interviews, to actually coming and walking the streets to observe people, to talk to people,

[00:00:25] Elaine Deehan: to such a degree that two days after we got our banking license, we actually onboarded our first customers.

[00:00:33] Elaine Deehan: At a Monzo level, it is a very human bank,

[00:00:36] Elaine Deehan: We want to make money work for everyone, and a big part of that is how we talk to customers and how customers engage with us, not just

[00:00:45] Elaine Deehan: when they have a problem, but like just understanding, how the product and services work.

[00:00:50] Elaine Deehan: They're here for more than just, thinking of it, "Oh, I'm just gonna download an app." They're, no, it's like, " I'm actually gonna bank with you."

[00:00:57] Pete Townsend: This is Money Never Sleeps: sharp riffs, big ideas and real insights from smart people. I'm Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures. Let's go.

[00:01:09] Pete Townsend: My guest today is making her third appearance on Money Never Sleeps. Given that our first episode was way back in October of 2018 and the second one was only two years later, you'd wonder what took us so long to get back on air together.

[00:01:22] Pete Townsend: Elaine Deehan is the Ireland Country Manager of Monzo Bank Europe. And Elaine, welcome back to Money Never Sleeps

[00:01:29] Elaine Deehan: Thank you, Pete. It's great to be back

[00:01:33] Pete Townsend: Awesome. Now listen, you've been fully live in Ireland now for just a couple of months. So what does that actually feel like now being on the other side of it? What's working? What were the things that surprised you?

[00:01:48] Elaine Deehan: Firstly, a lot of emotion, right? 'Cause I have been on this journey for quite a while, so as you well know. So a lot of emotion. So from the moment we got our banking license back in December, that was, I guess there was a lot of euphoria, excitement, and a little bit of fear 'cause now we're genuinely stepping into the unknown and out into the wild.

[00:02:12] Elaine Deehan: But an amazing, amazing feeling and brilliant opportunity. For the first couple of months, like we were, you know, really just slowly ramping up.

[00:02:21] Elaine Deehan: Us getting our first customers on board, listening to them, learning from them, fixing things as we went.

[00:02:27] Elaine Deehan: Seeing how we really landed with the Irish customer. So that was great and it was like, but it was nice and safe and, you know, it's within the guardrails of a very controlled launch. And then we did our full launch out into the wild, on the 14th of April.

[00:02:43] Elaine Deehan: Super response from, from customers both on our wait list, like we had 100,000 people on our wait list.

[00:02:48] Elaine Deehan: We're here because we knew there was an opportunity but it's actually like seeing it really happen before your eyes is, it's, you know, it's a great validation. So it's like, yeah, we made the right choice here.

[00:02:59] Elaine Deehan: And then to see us out in the wild as well. Like, I don't know if you've, you've probably seen the Monzo LUAS coming and going.

[00:03:05] Elaine Deehan: Yeah

[00:03:06] Pete Townsend: I've been on it.

[00:03:07] Elaine Deehan: Have you? I actually haven't been on it. I keep getting pictures from people like, "Oh, I'm beside or I'm on the Monzo LUAS."

[00:03:13] Elaine Deehan: But I actually haven't been on it myself.

[00:03:16] Elaine Deehan: You know, And then in the train stations and, like, we're really, to see Dublin being painted in hot coral is quite cool. But yeah, like, so the response has been fantastic.

[00:03:26] Elaine Deehan: Like, customers are, you know, flocking to us to, to open accounts.

[00:03:31] Elaine Deehan: It's so reassuring when you see somebody, you know, setting up a direct debit to pay, you know, to pay their bills.

[00:03:38] Elaine Deehan: They're here for more than just, having a browse around an app or, you know, thinking of it, "Oh, I'm just gonna download an app." They're, no, it's like, "I'm actually gonna bank with you."

[00:03:46] Elaine Deehan: We are a bank, and that's, that's what we want people to do.

[00:03:49] Elaine Deehan: So, to see it happening and to, to know that customers are trusting us in that respect is amazing. So yes, it's, it's great

[00:03:56] Pete Townsend: One of the things that kinda stuck out with me is that, you know, it's the more human digital bank, and I think Ireland was well in need of one of those. What does it take to make a digital bank feel truly Irish and truly human?

[00:04:14] Elaine Deehan: It's obviously not just a cookie cutter approach. Like you, you know, you take w- you know, the version of the app from the UK and drop it in here.

[00:04:23] Elaine Deehan: At a Monzo level, it is a very human bank, right?

[00:04:26] Elaine Deehan: So we're taking that and bringing it here, the very, very best. And behind the curtain, the amount of work and effort that goes into the research, to talking to customers, listening to customers, to truly understand how customers not just interact or the things they do, but how they really feel about money and their, you know, managing their finances.

[00:04:51] Elaine Deehan: Like that's the level of care and attention that goes into building this product for the Irish market.

[00:05:00] Elaine Deehan: What are people very frustrated with? Paying for everyday day-to-day banking, you know, surprise charges,

[00:05:07] Elaine Deehan: if you don't have enough money to pay a Direct Debit, you get hit with a Direct Debit referral fee, right?

[00:05:12] Elaine Deehan: Stuff like that is very, very frustrating for people. So, you know, we've got to really understand what the pain points or the problems that Irish customers face and really try to solve for them.

[00:05:24] Elaine Deehan: People get very, very frustrated with the way the bank speaks to them, the complicated jargon difficult terms and conditions.

[00:05:32] Elaine Deehan: That's a very,

[00:05:33] Elaine Deehan: simple thing for us to solve because that's in our DNA.

[00:05:36] Elaine Deehan: You know, the Monzo DNA is we want to make money work for everyone, and a big part of that is how we talk to customers and how customers engage with us, not just

[00:05:46] Elaine Deehan: when they have a problem, but like just understanding, how the product and services work.

[00:05:51] Elaine Deehan: So if you look at our terms and conditions, they're written in really simple English that anyone can understand.

[00:05:57] Elaine Deehan: It's not just any one thing, but it fundamentally is grounded in our mission.

[00:06:01] Pete Townsend: That kind of goes back to my very first experience with Monzo way back in 2017. I met one of the original co-founders of Monzo, Jason Bates, and he shared a story with me on how he went out onto the street when he was head of product for the, at the very earliest days of Monzo, and would ask people, "Tell me about your bank app."

[00:06:22] Pete Townsend: And sometimes he got people that would just look at him funny and walk away. Other times, he would get people who would actually answer the question.

[00:06:28] Pete Townsend: And they'd say, "Oh, listen, yeah, here's my bank app." It's like,

[00:06:31] Pete Townsend: how do you know how much money you'll have left at the end of the month?" "Well, I just kind of look at the balance and I calculate based upon the number of days ." "Wouldn't it be great to do some kind of budgeting?" You know? So it was those kind of questions about really getting into the customer's mind that, that stood out to me.

[00:06:43] Pete Townsend: How much of that to kind of rightsize things into an Irish mentality did Monzo do here in Ireland to figure things out in terms of, the best way for this to land in the Irish market?

[00:06:57] Elaine Deehan: A lot of work. So, as you know, I've been working on this project for, mm, two, you know, over two years, and a lot of that is doing

[00:07:07] Elaine Deehan: the legwork to actually get the license, to get a banking license, which is, which is huge. But the amount of work that was ongoing in parallel in terms of talking to Irish customers, doing research, everything from surveys to in-person interviews, to actually coming and walking the streets to observe people, to talk to people, to such a degree that day...

[00:07:35] Elaine Deehan: Two days after we got our banking license, we actually onboarded our first customers.

[00:07:40] Elaine Deehan: Again, it wasn't just purely like a lift and shift and drop. This was us having a product that actually was informed by all of that research.

[00:07:51] Elaine Deehan: And that's what I suppose is, is great about Monzo in the sense that the likes of Jason and Tom and Jonas, that real DNA that they had as founders lives on.

[00:08:01] Elaine Deehan: People that are still at Monzo who worked with that founding team. They've taken the baton, and they're really carrying it forward so that when people like me come on board, I really get a sense of the mission that the original founders had, and that does live on, and that's, that's really, really hard, you know, when you're scaling and you're expanding internationally to keep that culture and that DNA.

[00:08:26] Elaine Deehan: But it's, it's really, really central.

[00:08:28] Elaine Deehan: We're continuing to talk to customers, be it through the app surveys or reaching out to customers to actually you know, talk to us.

[00:08:36] Elaine Deehan: People who are maybe not engaging as much as we like, to say, "Well, look, what, how can we help you more? Is there something more we can do for you? As well as talking to those that are actually using us and loving us.

[00:08:47] Elaine Deehan: Again, it goes down to the mission and the DNA that we have.

[00:08:50] Pete Townsend: Yeah. Yeah, the DNA is in you as well, Elaine. Your very first startup was acknowledging the fact that kids and parents have financial lives together.

[00:09:00] Pete Townsend: That's saying, "Listen, banking is human, and this needs to be real," right?

[00:09:04] Elaine Deehan: And wasn't I right As well back then?

[00:09:06] Pete Townsend: You were right, you were right eight years early, more than eight years early, given you started that probably back in 2017

[00:09:12] Elaine Deehan: Yeah. Well, I mean, the seeds of that came, from my own experience as, as a parent seeing, how my kids were interacting with money and I suppose just knowing how the infrastructure worked, how you could actually make this something for, like, that parent-child relationship.

[00:09:28] Elaine Deehan: We didn't get to launch obviously, but, we did have the foundation of something very, very, special.

[00:09:35] Pete Townsend: We have Elaine Deehan to thank for how digital banks actually do have that facility, that feature now to support both those child and parent interactions and being able to oversee your kids and their spending.

[00:09:50] Pete Townsend: and given us talking about this now and seeing Monzo painted onto the sides of a Luas, and for those outside of Ireland, Luas stands for Leave Us All Stranded.

[00:10:01] Pete Townsend: Sorry, no.

[00:10:01] Pete Townsend: It's a tram system,

[00:10:02] Pete Townsend: seeing that land here in Ireland and seeing the approach that you've taken and understanding it,

[00:10:06] Pete Townsend: how much of this is now transplantable and the experience that you and the team have gone through to localize this and say, "Let's build this playbook for how it could go to the next market."

[00:10:20] Pete Townsend: How much of all that work that you've done is now actually reusable for Monzo's next market?

[00:10:27] Elaine Deehan: For going to Spain, obviously, that's our next market.

[00:10:30] Elaine Deehan: And actually we did quite a big splash in Madrid at the weekend.

[00:10:35] Elaine Deehan: But like I would work very closely now with the Spanish team just in terms of like sharing the learnings and building that playbook.

[00:10:42] Elaine Deehan: But, like it really depends market by market. What doesn't change is the mission, right? So that will not change no matter what market we go into.

[00:10:52] Elaine Deehan: There's different problems in every market, right?

[00:10:54] Elaine Deehan: And each market has its own kind of nuance. Even though we're like, you know, it's not just even language, but culturally and the attitudes to money,

[00:11:03] Elaine Deehan: the level of digital adoption in one market versus another.

[00:11:06] Elaine Deehan: But, you know, the core mission is, is the same. But then obviously when you go to a market like Spain, you've got, language localization .

[00:11:16] Elaine Deehan: And it's not just translating word for word,

[00:11:18] Elaine Deehan: it's like what does this mean for the person from an emotional point of view, the Spanish person's relationship with money, how they feel about money, et cetera. So like that is again going into the, you know, the foundations of the product. Obviously, then you've got, like in certain markets you have very specific payment rails.

[00:11:36] Elaine Deehan: So in Spain it's Bizum, for example.

[00:11:39] Elaine Deehan: So to be able to offer a customer in each local market, you know, a local experience so that they are actually fully able to participate in the local market.

[00:11:50] Elaine Deehan: Again, all of that work that we've been doing in Ireland in terms of the research and getting the customer feedback,

[00:11:56] Elaine Deehan: that is very much part of the playbook. You talk to the local customer. We can't rely on our assumptions based on experience to date in the UK or experience to date in Ireland. You really have to get in under the skin of a Spanish customer to be able to solve their problems.

[00:12:13] Pete Townsend: And given your love of the Spanish language, Elaine, that you developed by having and your family hosting students from Spain when you were younger, and you said, "Listen, I'm just gonna jump right in and I'm gonna talk to them and I'm gonna figure this out." Right? How, how, when you, when you chat with a team in Spain and, you know, share the experiences here from the Irish market, do you do that in English or in Spanish?

[00:12:37] Elaine Deehan: It depends. It depends. I'm actually... Do you know what's interesting? I was actually just in Spain this weekend, not at the, the, the activation that we did in Madrid, but actually I was at a wedding for w- for the original family that came to my family 35 years ago. So I was actually at a family wedding.

[00:12:55] Elaine Deehan: And I was speaking Spanish all weekend. But what was great was they were some of our, they have been some of our first, customers. So they, they came through, like, as Elaine's friends and family, and I have some great pictures of them all holding their Monzo cards. And when my friend picked me up from the airport, he went to pay for the parking at the airport, and he was using his Monzo card.

[00:13:16] Elaine Deehan: So, like, that was a full circle moment. That was pretty awesome. And when I go to the Spanish office, I guess it depends. If it's just maybe me and one other person, we'll talk Spanish, but if there's other people, we'll talk English.

[00:13:29] Pete Townsend: Wonderful. Wonderful. I love it. I love it. And bringing this back to Ireland, Elaine, what is the best way for people to get in touch with you and learn more about Monzo and onboard and open up a Monzo account?

[00:13:42] Elaine Deehan: The quickest, easiest way is to download the Monzo app from either the App Store or from Google Play Store. Visit monzo.com/ie.

[00:13:53] Elaine Deehan: If anyone wants to talk to me, hook me up on LinkedIn. If anyone wants to find out more about, like, the inner workings of Monzo, we have a great community page which we have a lot of, a lot of Irish people on, and kind of great early adopters.

[00:14:07] Elaine Deehan: And that, that was one of the things that Monzo did really well in its very early stages. They have a community, forum where people can go in and post feedback and ask questions and share ideas.

[00:14:18] Elaine Deehan: Back in the day, like, that was where you'd find Jonas or you'd find Jason or Tom hanging out, actually engaging with customers firsthand.

[00:14:26] Elaine Deehan: So we have that too. Sp, yeah, they're, they're probably all the, the ways to get in touch

[00:14:33] Pete Townsend: It feels very human to me

[00:14:34] Elaine Deehan: it's great that it does resonate. We work hard at it, so, yeah, we'll keep going.

[00:14:39] Pete Townsend: Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming back onto the show, Elaine, and telling us all about Monzo and your experience and what's going on in the journey. Really appreciate it, and can't wait for our next chat as well

[00:14:50] Elaine Deehan: Yeah, definitely. Thanks a mil, Pete

[00:14:53] Pete Townsend: And to all of you out there, thanks for watching and listening. Don't forget to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. It helps others to find the show, and it means a heck of a lot to me. Till next time. See ya.