‘Front door message’: Monzo on why loyalty is the ‘crux’ of its brand strategy

Loyalty within financial services has traditionally been associated with higher interest rates and savings incentives. However, in recent years banks have been partnering with high street names to offer customers targeted rewards.

Monzo is offering cashback, rewards and tailored insurance in an effort to “combine loyalty with money management”.

Vice-president of marketing and growth, AJ Coyne, says Monzo’s tiered account plans are “incredibly important” and designed from a combination of looking at life stage, customer need and what the brand is seeing from user feedback.

“If we want to show up as a partner in everyday life, loyalty is the crux and allows us to do that,” says Coyne.

Customer needs have shifted and people want to be able to see that instant gratification.

AJ Coyne, Monzo

In 2020, the bank launched its Plus and Premium accounts, with the goal to “make Monzo a little bit more you” and help customers manage their money. In April last year, Monzo replaced these with Extra, Perks and Max – three schemes allowing customers to upgrade their personal accounts in different ways.

Priced at £3 a month, the Extra account allows users to unlock advanced tools to see their other bank accounts in one place and dig into their credit health. For £7 a month, the Perks account also offers customers an annual railcard, annual Uber One membership and a weekly treat from Greggs. 

In addition, for a £17 monthly fee users on the Max plan get access to personal travel insurance, phone insurance, and UK and European breakdown cover.

Coyne says the plans were designed to fit “stage of life” needs. For example, there’s a railcard offering for those under 30, while the Max plan offers insurance to cover a whole family.

“Really thinking beyond just that single use case was the fundamental big change,” he explains. 

According to Coyne, Monzo is “purposefully looking at all segments” when developing a scheme. So far, 1 million customers have signed up to a Monzo plan according to its latest annual report.

The bank also upped its marketing spend by 77% to £97.4m during its 2025 financial year to drive brand awareness, with a “pulsing strategy” including more frequent above the line and through the line activity.

Valuable partnerships

Alongside its tailored plans, Monzo’s offering is best known for its partnerships with high street names – most recently Uber. Perks and Max members can save on Uber One and Uber Eats as of last month, as well as receive a free Greggs each week and a free Vue cinema ticket each month.

Users also receive tailored cashback offers, including from the likes of Nando’s, Superdrug and Waitrose, to name a few. According to Coyne, this method of instant access rewards – avoiding “15 pages of documentation and a cheque in the post”- helps customers make their everyday spending go “further”, rather than a scheme which builds up over time.

Spend data from customers allows Monzo to pick the most suitable partners and brands for its offering. For example, the Uber partnership was selected after the team saw its cashback rates for the business were high.

“Where are our customers spending and what does that tell us about them, and what they need? This is thinking beyond air miles that you have seen at other such institutions,” says Coyne.

“We’re constantly looking back to both what customers tell us and then how they behave with the product to curate the partners.”

Selecting partners works in two ways. He explains there has to be something “behaviourally and in the product” that says the tie-up is going to work, particularly if it’s a new brand for the bank to work with.

We’re constantly looking back to both what customers tell us and then how they behave with the product to curate the partners.

AJ Coyne, Monzo

Having a data-led approach is what Coyne thinks helps Monzo stand out in a crowded financial services market, which he sees as “challenging” given “there’s so much established in this space already”.

“There’s lots of people that are ingrained to that addiction to spending to get points for a certain reason,” he says.

For Monzo, the position of being a bank that helps customers save while getting rewarded at the same time is different. The shift towards “tangible everyday value” and away from points is a theme the marketer sees across the loyalty landscape in 2025.

“Fundamentally, customer needs have shifted and people want to be able to see that instant gratification,” says Coyne.

He explains loyalty integrates into the brand’s marketing strategy as a “front door message of why to join Monzo”, helped by the close relationship between product and marketing.

According to Coyne, this approach has proved successful given the amount of customers signing up driven by word of mouth. Some 2.2 million personal customers and 200,000 business customers joined Monzo during its 2025 full year period, 67% of whom joined the bank thanks to word of mouth recommendations.

Going forward Coyne is looking to perks as a way to “surprise and delight” customers, a strategy which fits alongside the bank’s wider push to help readers manage their money. This includes the publication last week of The Book of Money. Aimed at sharing tried-and-tested financial strategies used by millions of Monzo customers, the book is looking to eliminate the jargon and break the topic of money down into bite-sized chunks.