If there’s one industry the UK has always found a way to thrive in, its finance. That used to mean City-based banking and insurance giants founded long before the twentieth century.
Today, those businesses still exist, but are joined by a crop of upstart, tech-focused banks that burst onto the scene in the 2010s with sleek, intuitive apps that made consumers realise how much legacy figures have been getting away with in the digital age.
Here are Britain’s biggest challenger banks.
(Valuations are based on Dealroom data)
Revolut
Valuation: $45bn
The jewel in the crown of the rise of the British challenger bank, Revolut is not simply the most valuable among its peers, it is the most valuable private technology company in Europe. And it could soon be going public, with plans for an IPO on the cards.
The UK’s largest challenger bank – which only actually became a bank last year – is the only company on this list that boasts a valuation that puts it anywhere near the titans of legacy banking. With 50 million global customers, the rise of Revolut has been astonishing and all signs point to its growth continuing.
The journey of Revolut since its launch in 2015 has not been without controversy, in true banking fashion. The company has faced challenges from auditors and a noticeable volume of scam victims, but, looking at its valuation and user base, CEO Nikolay Storonsky will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Monzo
Valuation: $5.9bn
Monzo may lack the staggering metrics of Revolut – what company doesn’t – but it has nonetheless become one of the most popular banks in the country. Its userbase of around 10 million is nothing to sniff at, but where it has really shined is in its perception among those customers.
Monzo was ranked number one for customer satisfaction in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)’s biannual banking league table four times in a row from February 2023 to August 2024. Though the most recent ranking saw Monzo drop to second place, it remains a popular choice and one of the most recognisable figures in the neobank sector.
Starling Bank
Valuation: $3.3bn
Like Monzo, Starling has consistently shined in terms of customer satisfaction, having been in the top three of the CMA’s list – occasionally placing first – for the past five years.
The company was founded by Anne Boden, who perhaps most perfectly embodies the idea of a ‘challenger’. Boden said herself that “people never believed that a 5ft tall Welsh woman in her mid-50s could do something that has never been done before”.
But against the odds and in defiance of the male-dominated London-centric industry of banking, Boden has carved out an inspirational legacy in an industry resistant to change.
Starling has had its issues, however, notably in its financial crime prevention measures, which were deemed inadequate by the FCA, resulting in a £29m fine last year.
Zopa
Valuation: $1.1bn
Zopa started life in 2005 as one of the world’s largest peer-to-peer lending platforms – a high-risk form of loans that connects individuals who may be unable to secure finance through traditional channels with individual lenders – and only added banking to its services 15 years later.
The success of Zopa as a fully licensed bank has largely overshadowed its peer-to-peer activities, with the company ceasing that end of its business in 2021.
Metro Bank
Valuation: $824m
Often cited as the first British challenger bank, Metro in many ways bust down the door for those that came after it. Launched in 2010, Metro became the first new high street bank to receive a banking licence in the UK in decades, attracting praise from the likes of then-chancellor George Osborne.
Metro did challenger banking before it was really a thing, which is perhaps why it retains a feel perhaps closer to traditional banks with proper physical locations and everything.
The bank suffered something of a fall from grace in 2019 after it inadvertently failed to meet capital requirements rules. Its shares tumbled and have never recovered.
Atom Bank
Valuation: $478m
One of the ridiculously few neo-banks – or indeed any kind of British bank – to not be headquartered in London, Atom Bank has often prided itself in being different from the bunch.
Based in Durham, with plans to move to Newcastle soon, Atom once again distinguished itself by launching a four-day working week trial in 2021 and, get this, actually keeping it.
In the words of CEO Mark Mullen, the four-day model “isn’t progressive, it’s bloody logical”.
Tandem
Valuation: $468m
The self-described “green digital bank”, Tandem separates itself from the pack by exclusively offering “sustainable” financial services.
This amounts to putting funds towards climate-friendly enterprises and encouraging customers to transition to carbon-neutral lifestyles with cheap loans for green home improvements, EV motor financing and EPC discount mortgages.
Kroo
Valuation: $158m
Keen to present itself as more of a community than a bank – hence the name, a play on crew – Kroo raised tens of millions from investors only to shortly after launch a crowdfunding campaign that pulled in £1.5m. Why? Well, as Kroo CEO Andrea De Gottardo told UKTN, it was “not to raise money”, but to “allow our customers and other retail investors to get involved, to join us on this journey”.
In fact, the chief executive said it was his “long-term dream” to be predominantly customer-owned, which might one day make it one of the world’s only ‘neo building societies’.
Griffin
Valuation: $145m
Licensed in 2024, Griffin is among the youngest challenger banks in the country – like Revolut it was founded in the 2010s but has only been allowed to operate as a bank since last year.
How it does as a full bank remains to be seen but so far, it has made a name for itself through its banking as a service business, providing financial tools for other companies, including customer onboarding checks and payments.
Honourable mention: Chase UK
The existence of Chase UK as a regional entity of the consumer banking subsidiary of a centuries-old American financial titan makes it difficult to place on this list without a clearly comparative valuation.
Nonetheless, with two million customers and some £15bn in deposits, it would be wrong not to include it somewhere. Part of the JP Morgan Chase empire, Chase UK debuted in 2021 as part neobank, part legacy institution.
However one wants to categorise it, the fact is that Chase UK has in a very short space of time become a massive figure in British banking, not to mention its achievement in breaking Monzo’s aforementioned CMA league table streak.
