Meet Lili Metodieva, Managing Director at FinTech Finance Company: Monneo

Monneo is an FCA-regulated payment institution that connects online merchants to a network of EU and international banks, to provide virtual IBAN accounts and digital banking services, and is built around the open banking concept with the difference that Monneo also provides the IBAN accounts.

Monneo allows clients to monitor and control access to their reporting with one log-in, even when accounts are provided by multiple banks. 
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
The concept of Monneo was born by combining experience from the traditional acquiring/payments/ eCommerce world and creating something new in the digital banking sector. The goal was to create a new payments solution for eCommerce merchants in terms of banking, which has always been an inseparable part of the merchant payment ecosystem.

Monneo, although based on Open Banking, is a far superior solution. Open Banking is a relatively new directive that means the biggest banks have to release their data to be shared more easily between authorised organisations online. It had been talked about for a number of years, before it came into force in January 2018, and it presented a huge opportunity to improve European banking for many eCommerce merchants via new Fintech initiatives.

In ‘Open banking’ the client needs to ‘bring’ their banks to connect to a platform. Monneo upgraded this idea where we provide various banking options already connected to the Monneo platform on behalf of the client.

Not only does it deliver advanced technology and connectivity, Monneo also provides dedicated virtual IBANs at different banks under a single agreement and application process, so clients do not need to laboriously apply to each bank for an account.

We are happy to say that we are already ensuring that doing business is easier for thousands of organisations across Europe because of Monneo!
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
COVID-19 has created many challenges, but it also brought a lot of opportunities.

Fortunately, the business has been growing as consumers switched to online purchases, which allowed our clients (the online merchants) to grow their businesses. This was reflected in the growth of our business.

We had to switch to new marketing and sales channels and have used the time to automate most of the internal processes, adding new banks to our network and offering more payment options to our clients.

Traditional trade shows are where we tend to meet new business, and they are one of the main client acquisition channels for Monneo. Over the past 18 months, due to the impact of Covid-19, we couldn’t interact in this way.  With restricted international travel and trade shows being cancelled, or moving to online, we had to adapt to the new reality quite quickly.

Thankfully, trades shows and conferences are now back to offline and it’s great to be able to participate in person again. Next year we are already looking forward to travelling to more conferences and making new contacts and building the Monneo brand even further.
 

What can we hope to see from Monneo in the future?

 
We have invested a lot of our early energies into building the solution and the network that can really deliver on the promise we make to eCommerce merchants.

This year we have invested heavily in the technology side of the business as well as a full rebrand and are continuing to focus on developing our proposition, expanding our workforce, adding more banks to our network and launching new products and partnerships.

As we look back over the past year, I’m incredibly proud of what we have already achieved, and I am really forward to seeing how the Monneo brand develops and strengthens across Europe and beyond.

For more information about Monneo, please visit https://www.monneo.com