UK’s Koto becomes The Credit Thing

In December 2021, the fintech startup Koto, launched in London by the co-founders of the Ukrainian service monobank, has rebranded and relaunched its product. It is now called The Credit Thing and looks even more like mono.

• Koto is a mobile banking application from Oleg Gorokhovskyi and Misha Rogalskiy, former managers of PrivatBank, a Ukrainian bank. Its beta version was launched in March 2020.
• The app is targeting the so-called “near-prime” market, in other words, customers who cannot get a credit from a regular bank — this is more than 15 million potential customers for the rebranded Koto.
• Unlike the Ukrainian product monobank, which provides all banking services, Koto is a banking application that focuses on credits. This is because the company has a non-banking license in the UK.
• In addition to its name, the product itself has changed — the initial credit limit was increased to £1,500, as well as the grace period to 62 days at a 27.9% per annum interest rate. With the Open banking system, customers can also link all their current accounts as part of the credit application process to prove their creditworthiness.
• A few weeks after the rebranding, The Credit Thing received over 15,000 applications for credit cards. In 2022, the founders expect great growth of the customer base.

Read more about the project and the team in AIN.UA’s previous piece.