Our Plan to Close the Monzo Prepaid Cards

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Our goal has always been to build the “best current account in the world”, dramatically improving people’s lives, making it easier to understand and manage your money and everything that touches it.

In October last year, we said we’d begin shutting down the prepaid Mastercard® programme early this year. Today we’re announcing that our aim is to do this in early April, so everyone can move to a fully upgraded current account.

Why we’re doing this

We’ve talked at length before about the move to Monzo current accounts and the key message is this: you can keep using an upgraded Monzo current account in exactly the same way as your prepaid card, with no extra fees or charges and no overdraft (unless you opt in). It’s also much cheaper (and more reliable) for us to run our own systems and means you get a bunch of new features, like a sort code and account number, Pots, bank transfers and more!

To keep using Monzo, you’ll need to upgrade your account

Once we’ve shut down the prepaid programme, you won’t be able to use your prepaid card. So if you want to keep using Monzo you’ll have to upgrade your account.

If you haven’t already, you can upgrade at any time between now and then to get your new hot coral debit card! It’ll arrive in just a day or two and you can keep using your existing card while you wait.

It’s totally free, you’ll keep everything you’ve got now and get a whole lot more

Over the last few months, we’ve been inviting customers on the prepaid programme to upgrade to a full Monzo account, and over 200,000 have already upgraded.

It’s totally free and only takes a few minutes. Upgraded accounts are backed by our banking licence and £85,000 FSCS protection, which means your money is protected by the goverment.

They also come with their own sort code and account number, so you can do everything you’d expect from a ‘traditional’ bank account, as well as everything you’d expect from Monzo! You can keep using your account in exactly the same way as you did with your prepaid cards, or start using all the new features an upgraded account gives them — the choice is yours.

If you don’t upgrade, we’ll give you 60 days’ notice in early February

If you’re still using your prepaid card in early February, we'll give you 60 days’ official notice that we’re closing the prepaid programme by email and in the Monzo app. This is required by our terms and conditions, and we hope it’ll give you plenty of time to upgrade! Just tap the banner in your Monzo app to get your upgraded account.

This is part of our long-term plan to build the best bank in the world

We launched the “Alpha” programme in late 2015, closely followed by the “Beta” programme in early 2016, to let us start testing what we were building and get Monzo into the hands of customers quicker. We built these on prepaid cards, so we could get started before receiving our full banking licence.

The feedback we had from our users has helped us understand what people need and improve our product in response, and our community is the reason Monzo is what it is today. Now we’re excited to share what we’ve built with you, and help everyone upgrade to their new accounts.

Please get in touch if you’ve got any questions

We hope this gives you plenty of notice, and reassures everyone that it’s really easy to upgrade. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch through Twitter, Facebook, email or in-app chat, and join the discussion on the community forum. We’d love to hear from you!


Mastercard is a registered trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated. The Prepaid Card is issued by Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd (“WDCS”) pursuant to licence by Mastercard International Inc. WDCS is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to conduct electronic money service activities under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (Ref: 900051).