Best second UK bank account to pair with Monzo (2026)

Affiliate disclosure: this post contains a Monzo referral link. If you use it, we both get a mystery reward of £20, £50, or £100. It doesn't change anything about your account.

I've been a Monzo customer since May 2017, and the question I get asked more than any other is some version of "which second account should I open alongside it?" The premise is right. Monzo is a strong primary current account, but it isn't the best at everything, and there's nothing stopping you from running a second account in parallel.

The real answer depends on what you'd actually use the second account for. There are four sensible scenarios, with a different best pick for each.

Quick comparison

If you only ever add one second account, I'd pick Chase UK.

Why bother with a second account at all?

You don't have to. Monzo handles 95% of normal banking on its own: salary, bills, pots, spending, free travel abroad, and FSCS protection up to £120,000 (the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, government-backed cover if a bank fails). For most people, Monzo is enough.

A second account starts to make sense when one of these is true:

• You spend £500+/month on groceries and fuel and aren't earning cashback on any of it (a few hundred pounds a year of free money on the table).
• You hold £5,000+ in savings and want a better return than Monzo's 2.75% AER on the free plan (Annual Equivalent Rate: the yearly return with compounding included).
• You spend abroad in non-GBP currencies regularly, or have foreign-currency income. Monzo only operates in GBP.
• You want to invest in stocks or crypto from inside your banking app. Monzo doesn't really do this yet.
• You sometimes need to walk into a branch. Monzo has no branches at all.

If none of those apply, save yourself the admin and stop here.

Option 1: Chase UK (best for cashback)

The cleanest secondary-account pick. Chase pays 2% cashback on groceries, transport, fuel, restaurants, cafes and takeaways, capped at £20/month; for someone spending £800/month on those categories, that's roughly £192/year of free money, as long as in the previous calendar month you made 15+ payments and held £1,000 across your Chase savers every day. Monzo vs Chase UK carries the full terms, the excluded merchants and the head-to-head.

Chase also pays 4.5% AER for 12 months on its boosted Saver (a 2.25% intro bonus on top of the 2.25% variable base), which on a £5,000 balance is about £88 more over year one than Monzo's 2.75%, and 5% AER on the round-up account ongoing.

How to pair it with Monzo: salary into Monzo, then a standing order (a fixed amount you push out, as opposed to a Direct Debit the biller pulls in) topping Chase up by £100-200 a week for groceries, fuel and eating out. Tap Chase at the supermarket and the fuel pump, put everything else on Monzo, and keep the budgeting in Monzo where the tools are. Keep £1,000 sitting in a Chase saver every day of the month and make 15+ payments, or the cashback doesn't pay out at all. It lands monthly. After 12 months, reassess: Monzo's ongoing 2.75% beats Chase's drop-to 2.25%.

Catches: Chase has no overdraft, no joint account, no Monzo-style budgeting, and no cashback on anything you buy outside the UK. Current-account and round-up balances don't count towards the £1,000 you have to keep in a saver. Not a primary, but an almost-free upgrade if you can be bothered to switch which card you tap at Tesco.

Option 2: Revolut (best for travel and investing)

What Revolut adds to a Monzo setup is breadth, not depth: 30+ currencies you can hold in-app, fractional shares (a slice of one share, so you buy by amount rather than by share count), crypto, and a 2% non-EEA ATM fee above the free monthly allowance against Monzo's 3%. It became a properly licensed UK bank in March 2026, which closed the old FSCS gap.

The trade-off on the free plan is the £1,000/month FX limit: exchange more than that in a month and Revolut charges 1% on the excess. Under £1,000 a trip it's a non-issue, so this is a pick for people with foreign-currency income or genuinely multi-currency lives, not for the annual fortnight in Spain. Removing the limit means Premium at £7.99/month, which also raises the free ATM allowance to £400; Plus is £3.99, Metal £14.99 (£800 ATM), and Ultra £55 for a 4% AER savings rate.

How to pair it with Monzo: Monzo as primary (salary, bills, budgeting), Revolut as the pre-trip and investing card. Before a trip, transfer over and convert to the destination currency at the interbank rate (the wholesale rate currency trades at, before anyone adds a markup). After the trip, transfer leftover GBP back.

Why it's a second account and not a first: Revolut's Vaults are its answer to Monzo's pots, but they don't fill themselves. There's no equivalent of Salary Sort splitting your pay the moment it lands, no per-category spending target that warns you before you overshoot, and no Committed Spending view telling you whether the balance covers this month's Direct Debits. Revolut's analytics report what already happened; Monzo's tools try to change what happens next. There's also no overdraft at all on the free Standard plan.

Catches: Revolut's free-tier savings rate is mediocre. Investment fees on Standard are notably worse than dedicated brokers (Trading 212, Freetrade): 3 free stock trades a month, then £1 each, and crypto runs 0% to 1.49% depending on plan and volume, with Standard paying the top rate. If your second-account use case is purely cashback or savings, Revolut isn't the right pick.

Option 3: Starling (best for cheaper overdrafts, travel ATMs, and fixed-rate savings)

Starling is the most Monzo-like product on this list. Same full UK banking licence, same FSCS £120,000 protection, same fee-free travel card spending, same in-app chat support. So open it for the specific things Monzo doesn't do, not as a general upgrade:

• 15-35% EAR on overdrafts (Equivalent Annual Rate: what the borrowing costs over a year if you never clear it), against Monzo's 19-39%. Starling is four points cheaper in every band.
• £300/day free non-EEA ATM withdrawals, no monthly cap, against Monzo's £200 per 30 days and then 3%. That's the reason I opened Starling alongside Monzo in January 2026 ahead of an upcoming trip.
• 3.70% AER on the 1-year Fixed Saver, where Monzo has no fixed-rate option at all. It takes a £2,000 minimum and locks the money in for the full term; on a £10,000 balance that's about £95 more than Monzo's instant-access rate. It is below Starling's own Easy Saver for the next 12 months, so what it buys over the Easy Saver is a rate that can't be cut, not a higher one.

Starling has also taken back flexible savings, for a year: the Easy Saver pays 4.00% AER including a 1.50% bonus that runs for the first 12 months, against Monzo's free 2.75%. From month 13 the rate is 2.50% and Monzo is ahead again, so treat it as a year of extra interest with a diary note attached rather than a permanent home. Monzo vs Starling has the rest of the numbers.

How to pair it with Monzo: salary into Monzo, spend on Monzo, and use Starling for any overdraft buffer and cash withdrawals abroad. Park flexible savings in the Easy Saver while the bonus runs, then move them back to Monzo pots when it expires. Take the Fixed Saver instead only if you'd rather have 3.70% you know Starling can't cut than 4.00% it can.

Catches: running two app-only banks both designed to be your primary is genuinely confusing. There's a real risk of "which app has the bill in it" friction. If you don't run an overdraft, don't withdraw cash abroad, and don't have £2,000+ to lock in, the gains may not justify the friction.

Starling has also just started trialling a refer-a-friend scheme that pays new customers £25 in a Space once they meet the reward conditions it sets for that promotion; it's new enough that we haven't been able to test it yet, and our Starling referral page tracks its status.

Option 4: Nationwide FlexDirect (best for branch access)

Nationwide is the secondary account if you want anything physical. 600+ branches, real staff, paper statements if you want them, a counter to pay a cheque in at. No digital bank has a branch counter.

The current account itself, FlexDirect, pays 5% AER on the first £1,500 for the first 12 months, which caps the interest at about £75/year, and you have to pay in £1,000/month to qualify. Monzo vs Nationwide covers the debit-card cashback, the Fairer Share scheme and what happens once year one ends.

How to pair it with Monzo: redirect £1,000 of your salary into Nationwide monthly to qualify for the interest. Use Nationwide for branch banking, paying cheques in, the rare cash deposit, and as a backup if a digital bank ever has an outage. Use Monzo for everything else.

Catches: Nationwide's app is decent but generations behind Monzo's. The Visa debit carries standard foreign transaction fees so you'd never use it abroad. The reason to pick Nationwide is structurally that branches exist, not that the rate is amazing.

If you can only add one, add Chase

The cashback maths is real money you can feel within the first month, the year-one savings bonus is the biggest of any free account I've seen, and there's almost nothing to manage. Your salary doesn't move, your budget doesn't move; the only thing that changes in your week is which card comes out at the till.

How to actually run a Monzo + second account setup

1. Don't split your salary across both. Send the whole salary to Monzo (or whatever your primary is), then push fixed amounts to the second account by standing order. This keeps your main budget in one place and avoids the "where's my money this month" problem.
2. Set a clear job for each card. Chase for groceries and fuel. Revolut for trip spending. Starling for overdraft buffer and cash withdrawals abroad. Nationwide for branch days. Don't try to remember edge cases in the moment.
3. Reassess every 12 months. Chase's savings bonus and Nationwide's intro rate both expire at the end of year one, and Chase's cashback criteria have to be met in every month in between. Renew the setup or pull out.

Best second bank account FAQs

Can I have a Monzo account and another bank account at the same time?

Yes. There's no UK rule against holding multiple current accounts. Many people run two or three. There's no fee for opening another as long as your credit footprint isn't already heavily concentrated in new accounts.

Does opening a second account hurt my credit score?

A new current account adds a hard credit search, which other lenders can see, and a new line on your file. One additional account is unlikely to move your score meaningfully if you're otherwise stable. Opening three or four current accounts in a short period can.

Will opening a second account close my Monzo?

No. Opening a new bank account doesn't close any existing one. The Current Account Switch Service (CASS) does close your old account when you switch, but you don't need to use CASS to open Chase, Revolut, Starling or Nationwide alongside Monzo. Open them as additional accounts and Monzo stays exactly as it is.

Is there a downside to having two current accounts?

Two: the admin (two apps, two cards, two sets of statements) and the dilution of any deposit-linked perks that require a monthly minimum (Chase cashback after year one, Nationwide interest). If you keep one as the clear primary and tightly scope the second, the downside is small.

Which second account is best for someone who travels a lot?

If you mostly travel within Europe, Monzo on its own is usually enough (free EEA ATMs, no FX limit). If you regularly travel outside the EEA or work in foreign currencies, Revolut is the strongest second pick because of the multi-currency wallet and lower ATM overage fee (2% vs Monzo's 3%).

Which second account is best for savings?

It depends on the type of savings. For flexible, instant-access cash, Starling's Easy Saver pays 4.00% AER for the first 12 months (a 1.50% bonus on top of a 2.50% underlying rate) against Monzo's free-tier 2.75%, then drops below it: take the bonus year, then move the money back. For a fixed-term lock-in of £2,000+, Starling's 1-year Fixed Saver at 3.70% AER outperforms anything Monzo offers, though for the next 12 months it also sits below Starling's own Easy Saver: the fix buys certainty, not a better rate. Chase is the strongest short-term play (4.5% AER on the boosted Saver for the first 12 months only). Beyond a year, dedicated savings platforms (Trading 212 Cash ISA, easy-access savers from Atom or Zopa) typically beat all four.

Should I just upgrade to Monzo Max instead of opening a second account?

Possibly. Monzo Max (£19/month) bundles worldwide travel insurance, phone insurance, breakdown cover, discounted airport lounge entry via LoungeKey, and a 3.50% AER savings rate. If you'd otherwise pay for those separately, Max can be cheaper than buying them piecewise. It doesn't earn cashback on groceries, though, so a Monzo + Chase setup is still the better fit when cashback is the goal. (See our Monzo Max review for the maths.)

The bottom line

Sign-up rewards are thin on the ground among these four picks. Nationwide runs no refer-a-friend scheme, and Revolut's is invitation-only and pays the referrer only, so there's nothing in it for you. Chase pays £50 to each side, but only invites selected customers and issues single-use codes, so there's no code you can pick up online. Starling has only just started trialling a £25 one, which we haven't been able to test yet. The UK banking brands with tested schemes are ranked in our best UK bank referral bonuses guide.

Whatever you pair Monzo with, keep Monzo as the primary. After nine years it's still the cleanest day-to-day banking app in the UK.

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• Best UK bank account for travelling abroad
• Monzo Business for freelancers: a review from a real sole trader

Sources

The weekly referral verification covers referral schemes, not account pricing, so the rates and fees on this page are sourced against each provider's own published pages instead.

• Chase cashback (opens in new tab) and the cashback terms (opens in new tab): the rate, the monthly cap, the qualifying categories, the payment-count and saver-balance criteria, and the exclusions
• Chase Saver with boosted rate (opens in new tab): the boosted rate, how long it runs and the rate it drops to
• Revolut plans compared (opens in new tab): the plan prices, the free-plan currency exchange allowance and the fair-usage fee past it, the ATM allowances, and the savings rate on the top tier
• Starling savings (opens in new tab): the Easy Saver and Fixed Saver rates, the Fixed Saver minimum and its term
• Starling: spending abroad (opens in new tab): the daily fee-free cash withdrawal limit abroad
• Starling current account (opens in new tab): the arranged overdraft rate
• Starling referral terms (opens in new tab): the trial scheme, its reward and its per-promotion reward conditions
• Nationwide FlexDirect (opens in new tab): the introductory in-credit rate and its balance cap, the monthly pay-in requirement, the debit card cashback and its cap, and the rate after year one
• Monzo savings (opens in new tab) and Monzo plans (opens in new tab): Monzo's own savings rates and the price of Max
• Travel without fees (opens in new tab): the non-EEA cash allowance and the fee past it
• Monzo overdrafts (opens in new tab): the arranged overdraft rate
• FSCS: check your money is protected (opens in new tab): the deposit protection limit

If you're opening a Monzo account, using a Monzo referral code gets you a mystery reward of £20, £50 or £100 when you make your first card payment within 30 days.