Collison brothers’ Stripe invests in UK bank

Stripe, the fast-growing online payments firm established by Limerick brothers Patrick and John Collison, is among the backers of UK bank Monzo, which has raised £71 million in a funding round.

Monzo said it had been “an incredible year” after it grew its customer base from less than 100,000 people to nearly half a million, gained a full banking licence, and began the roll out of its full current account.

“Today, we’re excited to announce we have closed our latest fundraising round, raising £71 million from Goodwater Capital, Stripe and Michael Moritz, through his charitable investment vehicles including the Crankstart Foundation,” the bank said.

“They join our existing investors Passion Capital, Thrive Capital and Orange Digital Ventures, who have each made follow-on investments.”

PTSB mortgage lending growing more than twice as fast as market

---

New index to examine savings and investments

---

Finance union chief to retire after 32 years fighting automation

---

Former AIB executive comes full circle with its Isle of Man activities

---

Stripe, a San Francisco-headquartered company which employs more than 950 people globally, already operates in 25 countries, including Japan, where it officially opened for business late last year.

In seven years, Stripe has grown into a global company valued at $9.2 billion. Its first clients were small US tech companies, but it now has users in more than 110 countries, and counts firms such as Macy's, Bloomingdale's, GE, Adidas, and Facebook, among its customers.

The company, which was founded in 2009, offers payment processing services for online and mobile transactions. It supports credit-card payments in more than 130 different currencies, bank transfers, Bitcoin and Alipay.

In July, Stripe unveiled a partnership deal with two of China’s biggest digital payment services, giving the San Francisco-based start-up access to hundreds of millions of Chinese customers.

Monzo said the £71 million funding it raised was “an incredible endorsement of our strategy so far”.

“We’re so excited about the opportunities this investment unlocks,” it said. “Ultimately, this means we can continue the growth we’ve seen so far into 2018 and build on our mission to bring Monzo to as many people as possible, in the UK and beyond.”