Upgrading your Monzo account is totally free and just takes a few minutes. By tapping the banner in your Monzo app, you can upgrade your existing prepaid card into a full UK bank account ⬆️
Upgraded accounts are backed by our banking licence from the Bank of England, meaning up to £85,000 of your money will be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
A lot of you have asked us whether upgrading your account will affect your credit score.
The short answer
No! Unless you get an overdraft, or open lots of other accounts in a short period of time, upgrading your Monzo account will not affect your credit score.
The long answer
When you sign up for a Monzo account or upgrade your account, we run something called a “quotation search.” Sometimes known colloquially as a “soft credit check” or “soft footprint,” this type of search will not affect your credit score.
It was introduced by legislators to allow people to shop around for credit, without affecting their credit scores. It’s the kind of search carried out when you shop around for loans or mortgages on a price comparison site like Money Supermarket or Go Compare. Quotation searches like this will appear on your credit record, but lenders are not allowed to take them into account when making lending decisions.
When you upgrade your account, we run this type of check to determine whether or not we’d be able to offer you an overdraft, in case you want one in the future.
Once your upgraded Monzo account is open, we also notify our credit reference agency that you have a bank account with us.
Opening a bank account should not affect your credit score, unless you get an overdraft, or you’ve opened lots of accounts in a short period of time.
An overdraft can affect your credit score positively or negatively, depending on how you use it. Overdrafts on Monzo are 100% opt-in, meaning you can choose whether to have one or not. They won’t affect your credit score unless you explicitly switch on your overdraft.
It’s that simple! Upgrade your Monzo account today to get a full UK bank account without affecting your credit score.
Please let us know if you found this useful, and if you have any other questions you’d like us to answer! You can tell us on Twitter or join the discussion in the community 😃