Fast-growing digital bank Monzo is planning one of Britain’s biggest ever crowdfundings, paving a quick path to a stock market float, just months after receiving a full banking licence.

Tom Blomfield, co-founder and chief executive, said the start-up wanted to raise up to £30m from the public ahead of a float in as little as two years’ time. The ambitious plan comes after an explosion in customers at the East London-based bank with approaching half a million people now using its app and hot coral payment cards. 

Founded in 2015, Monzo was only given a banking licence in April of this year, enabling it to start moving its 470,000 prepaid account customers to fully-fledged current accounts from last month.

The bank is on course to hit a million customers by March next year, Mr Blomfield told The Sunday Telegraph. Monzo’s stated aim is to ultimately reach a billion users worldwide. 

Two successful crowdfunding campaigns have contributed £3.5m to its £105m kitty to date, with Monzo planning to up the ante next year and raise “between £10m and £30m”.  

The UK’s largest crowdfunding to date is the £19m achieved by BrewDog. Mr Blomfield said: “We’ll end up with a wide and diverse shareholder base and that will inevitably add to the momentum for a float as people will want liquidity.”

A Monzo IPO could happen within “anywhere between two and seven years”, Mr Blomfield said, with the timing partly dependant on the relative availability of private capital.

Monzo has sped up its thinking as expansion far outstrips expectations. At the time of a £22m fundraising in March, it advised investors not to expect an IPO “for at least 5-7 years”.

“The sort of magical part is we’ve been acquiring customers for free,” Mr Blomfield said. “Our marketing budget is close to zero. It’s all word of mouth and it’s just accelerating.”

The bank began advertising for a chief financial officer this week to help prepare the groundwork for a “likely” IPO.

Mr Blomfield added: “An IPO is not the end goal. It’s a stepping stone along the way. The goal is to build a massive company that helps the lives of millions of people around the world.”