Monzo relaunches £5 refer-a-friend bonus

Monzo has reinstated a referral bonus for people who sign up their friends to the challenger bank more than two years after it was scrapped.

The bank has been gradually rolling out the referral payments to its users over the past month, and they are now accessible to all Monzo account holders.

“We know how much our customers love using Monzo and the experience of doing so with friends, through features like bill splitting and shared tabs,” the bank said.

“The average customer has 30 friends using Monzo and now we’re letting them invite even more to explore the benefits.”

The referral bonus gives £5 to both the customer and to the new friend who they manage to sign up.

Monzo had introduced the system several years ago, but discontinued it in 2019 when the bank was facing financial pressure.

The bank said it wanted to “moderate” its growing number of users, This Is Money reported at the time.

It had paid out around half a million pounds in two months before scrapping the bonuses.

The decision came as the rapidly growing company needed to shore up its finances.

In 2021, for the second time in two years, Monzo’s auditor warned that it might not be able to continue operating as a going concern.

The bank reported a £130 million loss for the year to February 2021, an increase of £16 million from a year earlier.