Friendly fintech MoneyLion lands $160 million in fresh funding

Who doesn’t love being part of a club?

Most of us are suckers for anything that looks and feels a touch exclusive. Frequent Flyer points are probably the most obvious example of this in practice, alongside the coveted airline lounges, and their tiers of exclusivity and privileges.

What if banking was a club, rather than a bank?

That’s what MoneyLion have set out to do, and it’s a very clever piece of positioning.

When you choose MoneyLion to handle your finances, you’re not a customer, you’re a member, on either their core or plus plans. For a generation that’s grown up on Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox and Office 365, what could be more simple or straightforward than paying a $19.99 monthly membership fee for a banking service like MoneyLion?

Not only can you access low APR personal loans on the plus plan, you can even schedule your membership fee to be paid on your payday. Now there’s a simple trick that would win over all those people who’ve been burned by the rogue bank fee that puts them into overdraft the day before they get paid.

There’s so much talk in banking and fintech about redefining the product proposition, that many people look past the service positioning as being a key differentiator. While many people are looking for the ‘game changing’ technology, platforms like MoneyLion, with their 5 million members, have found success repositioning existing products, bundling things together, making people feel part of something and overall, just making the whole damn money thing feel a tad friendlier.

MoneyLion announced this week it had closed a $160 million round of funding that puts it just shy of a billion dollar valuation.

Often a house has good bones, but needs a fresh coat of paint, a few walls knocked in and a bathroom refit, to make what was cool in the 1980s actually liveable in today’s world.

Is banking any different?


I have no commercial relationship with the companies or people mentioned. I am not receiving compensation for this post.
