How to Buy Crypto with Monzo Bank
Author: Marco Vela - Fact-checked ✓
Summary: While Monzo Bank doesn’t offer crypto trading on its own platform, you can easily use your account to buy crypto using a third-party crypto trading platform.
There are plenty of UK crypto exchanges to choose from, we recommend using eToro as the exchange to work with.
They have most of the popular cryptocurrencies available, are easy to work with, and have fantastic support!
Buy Crypto with eToro
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As mentioned above, just like most UK banks, Monzo Bank doesn’t offer cryptocurrency trading directly, as setting up a cryptocurrency trading platform is quite complex and comes with regulations and extra requirements for the banks.
Luckily for us, there are plenty of cryptocurrency exchanges to choose from that you can use to buy bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency you might want.
You can sign up for an exchange (we will use eToro as our example because it is a trusted and worldwide exchange) and transfer funds to the exchange to trade crypto.
Table of Contents
How to buy crypto or bitcoin with Monzo Bank
There are only 4 steps involved, let’s get started!
1. Choose a cryptocurrency trading platform
As mentioned above, we’ll be using eToro for this guide as they are a widely used exchange and have over 50 cryptocurrencies to choose from. They also have a few really neat features like “Copy Trading”, which enables users to copy the trades of popular investors on the platform.
You can, of course, use any trusted crypto exchange for this, the steps will be very similar for most exchanges.
Let’s get started!
2. Sign up with the trading platform
The first thing to do is to sign up with the platform.
Once you’ve completed the initial sign up process, you’ll have to go through a quick verification process (also known as KYC).
3. Funding your account
Next up is funding your account. When it comes to depositing money to your eToro account, you have the option to use a bank transfer, PayPal, credit/debit card, and more.
4. Buy crypto
Finally, just go to the eToro Markets section, find the cryptocurrency you would like, and buy it.
And that’s it, it’s all pretty straightforward, now you know how to buy bitcoin or most other cryptocurrencies with Monzo Bank.
About Monzo Bank
Monzo Bank Ltd is an online bank located in the United Kingdom. [1] Monzo is one of the first of many new app-based challenger bank in the UK.
Monzo was initially operated via a mobile app and an prepaid debit card. In April 2017, its restrictions on UK banking were lifted. It can now offer a full current account. Monzo had more than 4 million customers as of March 2020. The Monzo's most recent financial results, which were published in July 2020, revealed a net loss of PS113.8M for the year, an increase over the PS47.1M that was lost the previous year.
Monzo announced that it will offer services in the United States on June 13, 2019, but it did not provide a timetable. The company announced that it would distribute approximately 2,000 debit cards at events in the United States to potential members who attended the company's events held in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. In addition to the retrieval of the debit card, the attendees were encouraged to give feedback about their products and services.
The US regulatory environment is more difficult than the UK for the company. The UK has a national regulatory system for financial technology. British regulators are known to be friendly to such companies. Technology regulation in the US financial sector is managed at the state level. One consultant told CNN that the US regulators aren't as knowledgeable as they should be in regards to financial services. They have either been very strict or they've been completely unaware of regulation.
Monzo will be entering the US market via a partnership with Ohio's Sutton Bank. Many of its features will remain, such as instant spending notifications or contactless pay. The company will not provide money lending services to American customers, as it did in the UK. The US market is highly competitive and fragmented, and the company will not be able to offer money lending services to its customers.
Monzo, along with Wirecard, initially offered a range of alpha and beta investor cards to customers who were interested in becoming early adopters. These were prepaid Mastercards that could be topped up via bank transfer or an existing debit card. The card's balance could be used online, contactless, chip-and-pin, magnetic stripe, or via contactless. Monzo issued cards in neon "hot coral", initially as a temporary measure while prototyping, but later on as a deliberate decision due to the success of its "eye-catching design".
Monzo began rolling out current accounts in December 2017 and issued new Debit Mastercards to all existing and new customers. Customers who sign up for the current account receive a Debit Mastercard.
Monzo Premium customers received the UK's first World Elite Debit Mastercard in October 2020. Monzo stated that the card was made of a single 16g steel sheet and weighs 3x more than traditional plastic cards. It also features a precision-engraved logo, a white finish, and is fully customizable. All Monzo Premium metal cards manufactured in New Jersey, USA.
Monzo has launched mobile apps for Android and iOS. Monzo cards can be used to make payments. Push notifications will be sent in real time to all phones that have the app. Historical transactions can also easily be viewed. You can categorise your transactions, mark company expenses, and view a complete overview of your spending habits.
The apps will display a map showing the exact location of the transaction and the logo of the company if it is available. Transactions will automatically be classified based on which company paid them. Crowd-sourced suggestions improve data accuracy.
Monzo made the Android application publicly available to anyone in the UK on 29 September 2016. The public beta was held in October 2015, and consumers were able to pick up a card in person at the office.
The UK banks offer limited, if any, programmatic access to customers' financial data. While the UK Government is currently looking at legislation to require banks to adopt standards for secure, open APIs, Monzo already released a prototype API based upon the OAuth standard within a year after its founding.
Four hackathons have been hosted by the company. There was also a Monzo Developers Slack channel that allowed for discussion and support. Developers can view transactions and accounts, get notifications about events via webhooks, and create items for the app. JSON is used to encode the responses, which makes it possible for developers to access data in any programming language that supports JSON.
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author Marco Vela
A crypto obssessed digital marketer passionate about making a difference in the world. When he's not behind the computer he can be found hiking, camping and relaxing with his dog.