Mondo plans to raise $19m to $26m for full banking licence

UK challenger bank Mondo plans to raise a further £15m ($19.4m) to £20m ($26m) as it seeks to have the restrictions on its newly awarded banking licence lifted.

The company says it hopes to include a significant element of crowdfunding in the new round.

The London-based startup received £1m ($1.3m) in just two minutes though a crowdfunding campaign in March and previously took on £7m ($9m) from Passion Capital over two rounds.

Mondo received a banking licence from the Bank of England last week.

However, it includes restrictions, such as only allowing the firm to hold a maximum £50,000 ($65,000) in total deposits, until it has properly tested its systems with live payments networks.

In addition to the new funding the company is embarking on a hiring spree to beef up its engineering and customer-support teams while it builds connections to payments networks.

It is also looking for people to take on the more senior positions of Head of Lending, Head of Compliance and Head of Risk.

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