Oleg Gorokhovskyi, the co-founder of the most popular mobile-only bank in Ukraine monobank, announced the launch of its Polish product called stereo. It will have many similar features that monobank has, like free of any fees payments and opening banking accounts remotely.
Stereo is a new mobile-only bank that in Poland will offer a pretty much similar banking experience as monobank for its users in Ukraine. As Gorokhovskyi told, stereo will offer the most popular options to clients as an MVP from the very beginning: cards and payments in a beautiful, pleasant interface. Over time, new features will be added.
One of the most competitive features of stereo, in comparison with traditional banks, is free of any fees and charges in payments and money transfers. Among other advantages are the option to open an account remotely in a matter of minutes, money transfers by phone number, virtual and physical card, features like shake-to-pay, etc.
Just as in Ukraine, where monobank operates on the basis of Universal Bank, Ukrainian fintech will cooperate in Poland with a local financial institution — a “daughter” of the Belgian Aion. Since 2018, the bank has been owned by the American private equity fund Warburg Pincus.
stereo is currently under development, but registration for access to the beta is already open for users. The full-fledged launch is planned for the end of the first quarter of 2023.
According to current data, there are three million Ukrainians in Poland. “First, we want to give them a convenient service, which they are used to in Ukraine, and will show them how it should work,” Horokhovskyi said. Undoubtedly, the work of Monobank in Poland will be aimed not only at refugees from Ukraine but also Polish citizens. To open a Stereo account, you must be in Poland and have a PESEL (Poland’s personal identification number). As the bank’s co-founder, explained, this project envisages convenient money transfers from Poland to Ukraine in addition to the bank’s usual services.
