Jason Bates

Founded

Contemporary launch reporting identified Tom Blomfield, Jonas Templestein (then Huckestein), Jason Bates, Paul Rippon and Gary Dolman as the team behind Mondo, later Monzo.

Education

His profile records two years of MB ChB Part 1 study, a BSc in Biochemistry and a Wellcome Trust toxicology studentship before his 1998 Accenture start. It does not claim that he qualified as a physician.

Awards

TechCrunch's winners list names the five Monzo founders, including Bates. This was a group award rather than an individual ranking. His profile records the recognition and date. The original award page was not recovered, so this remains first-person-professional-profile evidence rather than an independently validated award archive.

More

The relevant UK officer is Jason Craig Bates, British, UK-resident and born in March 1972, with an active 11:FS directorship from incorporation. That identity matches his career profile and current company biographies. At Accenture he trained as a systems architect before moving toward complex ventures and alliances; later ventures repeatedly combined product prototyping with change leadership. Bates says each paid corporate workshop funded an equivalent workshop for unemployed young adults and that more than 1,000 young people received training during his tenure. These impact counts are first-person, not independently audited in the reviewed sources. His detailed account says he interviewed customers, defined the proposition, developed prototypes, recruited product staff, named the bank and wrote substantial parts of the business plan and regulatory application. These are attributable operating claims, not sole-author claims for the resulting bank. Anne Boden's memoir characterized the 2015 conflict involving Tom Blomfield, Gary Dolman and Bates as a failed coup; contemporary and later reporting also describes deep strategic and interpersonal conflict followed by a group departure. This dossier records the disagreement as competing accounts and does not adjudicate intent or assign misconduct. Bates says he led customer and product development, brand, social and community activity, built the product team, launched the alpha app and wrote and defended the value proposition at the FCA/PRA challenge session. 11:FS's current biography corroborates the remit at a high level. Monzo's official naming post credits him with noticing while on holiday that the community-suggested Monzo name had relatively clear trademark space and an available .com domain. The March 2016 Mondo campaign raised £1 million from 1,861 investors in 96 seconds, then a record. Bates cites the milestone in his profile, but the campaign was a team/company achievement and the round total was not his personal capital. TechCrunch reported that he left at the end of 2016 to build 11:FS. His own profile says he stepped back from day-to-day delivery. Later media described him as a minor shareholder, but no current holding, sale or proceeds were established. David Brear's first-year account names Brear, Bates, Simon Taylor, Meaghan Johnson and Ross Methven as the initial five co-founders, with Chris Skinner as NED. It says the company initially had no office, brand or podcast audience. Bates has hosted and co-hosted FinTech Insider since 11:FS's first year, interviewing operators and covering digital banking, payments, APIs, AI and business models. Early audience and later reach claims belong to 11:FS and are not treated as independently audited. His writing argues that putting old banking forms and transactions on a screen is digitization, while digital services should be proactive, intelligent and built around customer outcomes. Bates framed truly digital propositions as Real-time, Intelligent, Contextual, Human, Extended and Social. Later 11:FS material continues to use the framework. His 11:FS approach gives small multidisciplinary teams clear customer jobs, authority and scope to ship quickly rather than layering decision-making committees. Bates and 11:FS describe a stack spanning transaction rails, enabling capabilities, products, intelligent services and embedded finance. A 2023 interview used a four-layer retail-banking formulation, while later firm materials explicitly use five layers; the difference reflects version/scope rather than a settled factual conflict. Xinja announced in December 2020 that it would return deposits and its Australian banking licence after funding difficulties and an inability to launch lending. Bates's profile ends his board-adviser/investor role that month. Reuters and APRA describe a company-level commercial exit; no source reviewed attributes the causes or regulatory process personally to Bates. In a 2019 interview he said he had bought some Bitcoin, sold enough to cover his costs and retained the balance. No amount, current holding or investment thesis was established, so this is not modeled as a startup investment. The investor consortium completed its acquisition of Banque Havilland Monaco in August 2025 after CCAF and ACPR approval and relaunched it as Moncrief in October. Bates's stated focus is combining relationship management with digital interfaces and products. 11:FS's podcast calls Project Arnaud a wealth-management initiative from Bates, David Brear, Jamie Campbell and Max Koretskiy. Companies House's current 11:FS Holdings officer page does not list Bates as a director, so the dossier treats this as venture involvement through the group, not a separately verified founded company or board seat. His profile humorously mentions a wife in discussing the Europas wording. Registry records connect Jennifer Bates to Heart Shift, but no source reviewed explicitly establishes the nature or current status of that relationship, so the dossier does not name a spouse or infer children, residence or other family details.

From Jason's own website — common ground for a warm intro.

Intro paths

Co-founders at Monzo

TB

Tom BlomfieldCo-Founder & former CEO

JT

Jonas TemplesteinCo-Founder & CTO

PR

Paul RipponCo-Founder

GD

Gary DolmanCo-Founder & former CFO

Intro paths

Co-founders at Starling Bank

AB

Anne BodenCo-founder

PR

Paul RipponCo-founder

TB

Tom BlomfieldCo-founder