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      Luno

      Part of Digital Currency Group

      Engaged Employer

      Luno reviews

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      4.4

      95% would recommend to a friend

      (566 total reviews)

      James Lanigan

      97% approve of CEO

      77% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      4.6

      Culture & values

      4.5

      Diversity & inclusion

      4.4

      Work/Life balance

      4.1

      Career opportunities

      4.0

      Senior management

      4.0

      Compensation and benefits

      Luno has an employee rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 566 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Luno employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finanzas industry (3.7 stars).

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Reviews by job title

      566 reviews
      1.0
      Mar 29, 2019

      Avoid this place. Bad culture and starting to come undone.

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Some people are genuine and really smart. salaries are ok but the money isn’t worth the unhappiness.

      Cons

      Where to start? Some of the other reviews have covered off a few points but you’ll be sold a dream and the reality is different in truth . It’s a miserable and depressing place to be. The management don’t listen to their employees at all. You’ll be be expected to give it all and will get very little back (no medical or pension, no shares, no maternity or paternity policy) all you’ll get is a lunch which you are forced to have indoors to mix with the team You have to travel on weekends and don’t get the time back and expected to answer emails 24/7 and be constantly ‘on’. It’s frowned on to take a break or run errands at lunch or to work at home. The CEO can be difficult to deal with and so are some toxic employees. Their answer to solving issues is to organise a night out instead of doing things which will actually make the staff happier. They are hiring some amazing people, with great experience from good tech companies but this people will soon get fed up and tired of it all when they realise what it’s like. Some good people left after just a few months and more and more are leaving. What does that tell you?! Nobody wants to spend time with each other apart from to talk about how unhappy they are with various things. The all company summit is just forced fun. You think you’re mad when you are there as they just talk about how amazing it is but you aren’t, other companies are just better to be at. People are starting to realise it but It’s all brushed under the carpet. Also they ask people to write a Glassdoor review 2 weeks in so that’s why most are positive.

      avatar
      Luno Response
      7y
      Hi there, Marcus here. Firstly, I’m very sorry that you have had such a bad experience. I can assure you that I have read your review many times and I’ve taken it very personally, so have many other people in the team that are trying their utmost best to build a team and a place where people love their work and can significantly progress in their careers. Given we have hundreds of very happy people in the company we’d like to think that most of the time we get it right, but we also do know that often we get it wrong, and if you were on the receiving end of that I do apologise. No-one here would ever intentionally miss-sell the opportunity, and as you know in companies and in life, there are many reasons why things happen or don’t work out. We’re scaling fast and learning as we go along, and again it won’t always be perfect. Where your comments have some truth in it we have reflected on these and continue to work to make it better - there is no doubt about it that we can do many things better. I suspect a lot of your concerns are also because some things might have existed, but not communicated properly, especially in our London office that was pretty new and we needed time to get everything in order (and yes, that is my fault for not communicating it properly). There are also many things on your list that I feel is only fair to point out (please feel free to contact me if you disagree or wish to discuss): No maternity / paternity leave: we’ve always had this No shares: many people do get shares, we have a company ESOP, it just depends on the role / your experience. No pension: I assume you refer to statutory pension in the UK. We have that. It took time to implement it but it was communicated to the team and disclosed at signing for all, and everyone was okay with this Medical - we don’t have private medical yes, this is not because we don’t want to, it’s because we haven’t had the time to put it in place. To make up for this, whenever we hired someone, we would pay them more on top of their base to make up for it so that they could pay their own medical. Over time we will try and build a group scheme, but we’d never expect anyone to be out of pocket on this, and as far as I know no-one has ever been. Forced indoors lunch: we provide free lunches to the team Mondays to Thursdays. It’s not forced, it’s free, whether you choose to have your free lunch or not is your decision. I’m sorry you felt this was something bad, we want to give the team free lunch which is meant to be something good. Forced travel over weekends: again, not forced. Nothing is ‘forced’ her. We are all adults and can decide to do something or not. That said, I can see how there could have been a miscommunication here because sometimes people would book weekend travel out of habit, which could come across as forced, but again it wasn’t the intention. Some people get away with murder/toxic employees etc: this is both my responsibility and that of people that notice it to mention it to me, so that if there is truth in the matter we can deal with it. We have a track record of doing it many, many times and won’t hesitate to do it again. Please let me know if there is something I missed so I can act on it if appropriate. CEO difficult to work with - sorry you feel this way, I try my best. Answer emails 24/7 and constantly on: I’ve not seen this for anyone regularly let alone the whole company. There might be some exceptions with the odd late night or weekend stuff but it’s certainly not the norm. I would love to know more if you can share. Frowned about to take breaks for errands or work from home: I’ve genuinely never seen or heard anyone have any issues with people running errands or having to ask, in fact I would argue that I’ve actually never seen an environment where one can so easily do this. And yes, I checked this with the entire London office after this review. Company summit forced fun: we fly or drive people from all over the world somewhere for an all expenses paid week filled with events, knowledge sharing, meeting colleagues, lots of parties etc. It is not forced in any way, and there are often people that can’t make it for personal reasons, but hundreds of people really love it. I’m sorry you personally hated it. Have people write Glassdoor reviews 2 weeks after joining: I suspect this might have happened once before many years ago, by accident, but it’s not something we do systematically or encourage - you can just look at the dates of the reviews on Glassdoor vs the 10-30 people we onboard every month, and it will be obvious this is not true. Again, I’m very sorry that I ignited so much anger in you. Please know that so many people at Luno care about our company and the team and every single individual so so much, and we will continue to try our best, despite our faults. Please email or whatsapp me personally if you need to discuss any of the above, you have my contact details. Marcus
      2.0
      Apr 17, 2019

      Its a great place to work but loads of issues

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      This review is written with the idea of giving insight into an extremely complex company. I can assure you it is like no other place to work. I have been at the company since 2017 and seen it grow from cool start-up to what it is today. On the surface, it ticks all the boxes of a cool and trending company and to a small degree, it achieves that. Luno has one of the best visions in the world. There are few companies out there that have a mission statement that is amazing to get behind and fewer who actually stand-by it and an even smaller subset that can actually deliver it. Luno ticks these boxes well. There is some great quality of life perks that the company provides that are awesome for employees. These are mainly designed around having a world-class onboarding experience. Which has been a big focus part of the company. (this aspect later forms one of the bigger problems). However, there are lunches and comfortable working environments. The people you work with are world class. There are people for such diverse and interesting backgrounds. I have always been blown the type of people that are interested in working in the industry. In addition to that and depending on the office, it has a fantastic culture at the peer level. This is very much the case in the Cape Town office, however, not all offices share this feeling.

      Cons

      It is with a heavy heart that I mention the cons as I am typically not a person who likes to complain but it is worth mentioning. The company has grown so massively since I started. As of this post, we are over 200 employees. This growth is at the root of many of the problems the company faces. Too fast too quickly with not much attention placed on the wellbeing of the employees One of the front running things worth mentioning is: The company is fast becoming a corporate. Not a traditional formal attire corporate, but a corporate where it loses the charm that made it such a great place to work. The management team have tried really hard to accommodate the ambitious growth and there are not doing a great job. This is understandable if had the benefits of a corporation, such as medical aid but it does not. Luno is no longer a cool place to work where you can move the needle anymore. The type of people the company attracts is usually high performing, young and ambitious people. This is an ideal person to have in your workforce but the managing leads have no clue how to direct these people. Loads of ideas, solutions and progress gets lost in the middle management ranks. This is sad as even to this day the company boasts it can move faster than the competition. While I am sure it could, it is not gearing itself for it. It's building itself to be a traditional company. The focus has been on getting new people and that seems to be where to scope ends. There is no succession plan for employees and no actionable interest in growing current staff. There has been a lot of mention of them doing this but nothing tangible has historically happened. If you are reading this and think, I am a young and ambitious person and wanting to see if you can accelerate your career at Luno in a new industry then I am sorry to say you won't be as accelerated as you expect. There has been very little real work done on growing people in the company. Recently a new policy was put in place called the development ladder to help address these issues but it is nothing more than a corporate ladder - they did not even try to hide the name "ladder". The intention is to create a fair system for growth but I doubt it will achieve that, instead be an inhibiting growth policy. The HR department/People team who have a history of being unbiased oversees this process. It is very management centric policy [Disclaimer - I will remove this comment if the ladder actually achieves good outcomes for the teams]. I will be fair and say that the management team are trying their utmost to work with these issues, to varying degrees of success. I am happy to report that even with the issues there are acknowledgements of where there can be improvements. More and more channels to management being opened to discuss employee sentiment as time goes by. Hopefully, the criticism gets taken on board and Luno can finally start loving its employee as much as it loves its customers.

      avatar
      Luno Response
      7y
      Hi there - Marcus here. I'm truly sorry to hear that this is what you are experiencing at Luno. As we are scaling we are trying really hard to make Luno a great place to work for everyone whilst dealing with a lot of typical growing pains. Where people raise concerns we always try our best to do something constructive about it. That said, we do need to know what the concerns are, and the best way is to tell me directly. So I’d like to invite you to a conversation around your concerns and hopefully address some, if not all, of it. If you are open to it, please reach out to me so that we can set up some time to talk.
      2.0
      Mar 28, 2019

      Bad culture, don't express an opinion and don't expect progression

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Salaries are competitive for some roles

      Cons

      Working at Luno is more about who you know than what you know. The decision making in Luno is made by a select few, these are those who are either in favour or have served time rather than those who might have more knowledge or skills to make those decisions, don't try to express an opinion to these select few as it will fall on deaf ears, either that or you will forever be the person who didn't agree. Luno has people working in roles they do not have the experience or qualifications for and simply are there on good terms, this sets a bad example for those who truly want to progress as there is no example of 'hard works pays off'. Luno would like to be seen as a company who 'works hard, plays hard' the truth is no one wants to spend time together outside of working hours, if we do it is forced fun and not enjoyable. The HR department is questionable and not open to feedback or ideas, neither do they hold a very open view on the world. Travel is expected but also expected to be done in your own time, flying on weekends for long periods of time is expected and you won't be given days back for this. The only benefit offered is a free lunch that you are expected to eat in the office at the same time as everyone else within a twenty minutes slot, it is frowned upon if you expect to go outside or make any plans at lunch.

      avatar
      Luno Response
      7y
      Hi there - Marcus here. I'm truly sorry to hear that this is what you are experiencing at Luno. As we are scaling we are trying really hard to foster a culture of feedback, where Lunauts can raise concerns in a way that allows us to do something constructive about it. These things are typically much better discussed and dealt with in person, so if you are open to it, please reach out to me so that we can set up some time to talk and address your specific concerns.
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      Glassdoor has 582 Luno reviews submitted anonymously by Luno employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Luno is right for you.