Morning wakes up as French challenger bank
French challenger bank Morning has stepped into the fintech daylight with all the energy and élan of a Daft Punk album.
Powered by Banque Edel
Morning’s message to the old guard is clear: “The account that wakes up the bank.”
The neobank will let users open an account and order a Morning Pay card in less than five minutes.
This Morning Pay account is free and is linked to a French IBAN. It also offers a Mastercard usable at all Mastercard network traders worldwide.
Along with the product, it offers Morning Jump, a pocket money tool for teenagers. The idea is to offer a co-piloted account to help this age group manage their budgets.
For businesses, it provides “Morning-as-a-Service”. This is its proprietary platform for B2B customers offering products and services as a white label option.
There’s no specific date but it will also be launching Apple Pay soon.
Frederic Senan is the CEO of Morning. He previously worked as commercial director at Banque Edel for two years. In fact, Morning was acquired by Banque Edel in 2016 to be developed as a standalone digital offering. Banque Edel is an affiliated bank of E.Leclerc Retail Group, France’s largest retailer. (Senan is also director of development at E.Leclerc.)
The bank is based in Saint-Élix-le-Château, Haute-Garonne. “Mon Dieu! Where the hell is that?” you may well cry as a Gitane coolly dangles from your lips. Well, mon chéri, it is in fact just south of Toulouse, in the beautiful south of France.
Morning is regulated by the bank regulator Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (APCR).
FinTech Futures has contacted the bank for more details about its tech and plans.
In terms of other French challengers, one example is mobile-driven multi-currency bank Ditto. This is backed by foreign exchange company Travelex and is “managed as a separate entity”.
