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  • Ukrainian digital bank mono surpassed 10 million customers and marked the milestone with an in-app “lemon” game, offering prizes including a BMW 3 Series. Overnight, more than 149,000 users joined, with over 1 million finding at least one lemon and system load increasing sevenfold, causing partial outages in transfers and payments.
  • Co-founder Oleh Horokhovskyi called the surge “madness,” acknowledging that parts of the app’s functionality “died” and promising a swift fix, plus 50 additional iPhone Airs as compensation. User data show a median participant age of 26 and near-equal gender split, underscoring mono’s young, mass-market reach.
  • Technical failures and the use of critical banking infrastructure for entertainment sparked backlash, with some individuals and businesses saying they would switch banks over reliability concerns. At the same time, the campaign triggered a wider marketing boom, with partners adding prizes such as an $83,000 apartment and users monetizing “lemon” search guides, turning the promo into a broader social phenomenon.

The number of mono bank customers has exceeded 10 million – this was announced on October 16 by the bank's co-founder, Oleg Gorokhovsky. To celebrate, the mono app launched a game where users can collect virtual "lemons" and win prizes – including a BMW 3 Series car.

In just one night, from October 16 to 17, more than 149,000 users joined the search for lemons. Due to this surge in activity, the system malfunctioned: some clients were unable to make transfers, payments, or send donations, and social media was flooded with complaints about app malfunctions.

So what really happened – a brilliant marketing ploy that attracted the attention of hundreds of thousands, or excessive gamification that paralyzed the bank's operations? A LIGA.net correspondent investigated.

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