LONDON - Monzo reported its first annual profit on Monday in a milestone for the fast-growing British digital bank as it works towards its goal of a stock market flotation.

The mobile app-based bank has amassed 9.7 million customers since its launch in 2015 but had previously found it tough to translate its popularity into profit.

Monzo reported a pretax profit of 15.4 million pounds ($19.6 million) for the year to March 2024 in its latest annual accounts, compared with a 116.3 million pound loss the previous year.

The company's push into more lending and savings products has helped boost its revenue, which more than doubled to 514.4 million pounds from 214.5 million pounds.

The company secured 340 million pounds of new funding in March in a round led by Alphabet-owned fund CapitalG, valuing the company at 4 billion pounds ($5.1 billion).

Monzo CEO TS Anil has previously said the firm's aim is to become a publicly-listed company.

The bank's push into lending - including buy-now-pay-later products - has come at some cost, with its provision for potential loan defaults almost doubling to 204 million pounds, up from 106 million pounds.

Monzo is also making a second tilt at the lucrative U.S. market after hiring a new leadership team for the venture, after abandoning a previous attempt in 2021.

The company said it was also in the early stages of opening an office in Dublin, ahead of potential expansion into further European markets.

($1 = 0.7855 pounds)

(Reporting by Iain Withers Editing by David Goodman, Kirsten Donovan)