First stop – Ireland. The British challenger bank Monzo received approval from Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to launch in the neighboring country of Ireland through a passporting license, thus kick starting Monzo’s international expansion plans.

Following its launch in Ireland, it will gradually launch in other countries in Europe this year through. The bank could even move to the U.S., given that it is already in preliminary discussions with the U.S. regulators.

Monzo will not be establishing offices in Ireland as of now. There is no announced timeline for the app’s launch either.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Thomas George, head of international at Monzo, said:

Ireland is a great first step for Monzo: there’s no language barrier, there are strong cultural similarities, and the way people use banking products is similar. But as Tom [has previously] said, expansion into the rest of Europe would require us to build multi-language support and make other changes to the product to meet local customer needs.

Only three years old, Monzo launched in the U.K, and already has half a million users. They received a banking license from U.K. regulators last April. Whether it intends to apply for a pan-European banking license following Brexit is not clear.

Read more on TechCrunch and CityA.M.

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