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This is where they actually bring value right? - Delivering a good banking product outside of the UK. Because as a UK customer I see no reason to switch after

This is where they actually bring value right? - Delivering a good banking product outside of the UK. Because as a UK customer I see no reason to switch after trying Monzo for a couple of months. Positives: - a nicer mobile banking app Negatives: - no credit cards and no option to top up using a credit card from another bank - no physical branches Everything else is comparable to most other banks in the UK. Which isn't bad, just nothing worth switching banks for.

Folcon 7y ago
I wouldn't undervalue the effect of getting a notification every time your account gets used with additional details and the trivial ability to look back over past transactions whenever you want. I'm constantly surprised by how useful the app is.
- jon-wood 7y ago
  That alone has been something that keeps on Monzo. I once had someone try to buy a flight with my card - I immediately got a notification, froze my card to prevent further payments, and had the whole thing resolved within 20 minutes of the first payment. With a conventional account likely the first I’d have known of it was when I tried to make a payment and it was declined, and I’d then have to unpick everything. I’ll also admit I have on occasions gone through my transaction history the morning after to work out which bar I ended up in.
shawabawa3 7y ago
> - no physical branches Massive positive for me. I've never had a good experience going to a physical bank branch (if they're ever even open), and now I'll never have to go again
- dazc 7y ago
  I recently visited my local branch after shooting myself in the foot when re-installing their app and locking my account. After waiting a couple of minutes, a lovely lady sorted out my problem with no fuss at all. I agree, mostly I never need to step foot in a branch but sometimes it helps to be reminded that there are advantages of doing business 'face to face'.
- kurtisc 7y ago
  I agree. If a bank has physical branches to fall back on, they can squander the online/phone story. This has happened with another bank I use which has a website with a broken account creation form and phone lines that just die. For most banks, they might as well not have any branches as I can't get to them at a reasonable opening hour and they have no incentive to change that.
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    > I agree. If a bank has physical branches to fall back on, they can squander the online/phone story And meanwhile First Direct has a mediocre website and terrible mobile app experience when compared to the likes of Halifax, TSB, RBS, Barclays, all of which are sub-par compared to the likes of Monzo or Starling as far as the app experience goes. Then again, Monzo and Starling don't have a desktop experience, so good luck if you wan't to do anything more than just looking at a few transactions on the go.
- collyw 7y ago
  Taking away the option of doing something is positive?
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    One of my bank accounts didn't let me change my address online. I had to go to the bank and do it. A branchless bank must have an alternative
    - collyw 7y ago
      So what you actually need is the ability to change your address online. Not the ability to go into a physical branch removed.
maccard 7y ago
> no option to top up using a credit card from another bank Can you top up your HSBC account with a credit card from another bank? A Monzo account is just another bank account. > no physical branches Is this really a con? Last time I visited a branch (Nationwide), I was told to just go online and fill in the forms. Monzo let you deposit cash and cheques at the post office - my post office has better opening hours, shorter queues, and there are more of them than branches of my specific bank.
- randomvectors 7y ago
  > Can you top up your HSBC account with a credit card from another bank? A Monzo account is just another bank account. That's a good point. But with the low exchange rate and a modern app, they're also (willingly or not) competing with Revolut. I can top up a Revolut account with a credit card.
  - maccard 7y ago
    That's also a fair point - the idea of a bank account has been muddied. Monzo had "pots" which all gain interest, and they come from the same account. I'm not aware of any other bank accounts that offer embedded savings accounts. I do think that comparing a bank account to a prepaid card is a little too much of a stretch thoigh.
    - randomvectors 7y ago
      Revolut isn't just a prepaid card. What they offer is very similar to Monzo, even if they started out differently. That's why they're competing with each other and it's fair to compare them.
      - maccard 7y ago
        I have to say, I'm actually a little muddied on what revolut is. They claim to be a current account, except they're not fscs protected, but they do have some interesting parallels and additions to a current account.
Liquid_Fire 7y ago
For me the killer feature is foreign currency transactions with no fees at the MasterCard exchange rate, both online and abroad. My "traditional" bank charges me a flat fee and a percentage for any transactions in other currencies.
- randomvectors 7y ago
  Yep, that's a massive positive that I forgot to mention. In that space they're competing with Revolut rather than the traditional banks. Many people's setup will be traditional bank for everyday banking + Revolut for travel. Monzo can potentially replace both if it gains traction and people trust it enough.
- sambe 7y ago
  I don't know what the MasterCard exchange rate is. However, someone recently told me regarding their credit card: "they give me the wholesale exchange rate, which is great". It turned out not to be so great (~1% wide market). It's good not to pay an additional fee/spread on top, but it can still be a poor deal overall.
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    This is their convertor below. $10000 dollars cost £7,867.91 I googled $100 USD to GBP and it comes out as: £7,859.50 Percentage difference: 0.106947% https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/convert-currency.html https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/con...
    - sambe 7y ago
      Google isn’t really an authority. The Google rate could be bad and MasterCard 0.1% worse. They could be from different times. Also, the MasterCard site says indicative only - if I convert the amount back again, MasterCard claims they are giving me free money. GBPUSD spot is 0.002% wide (so you’d expect to pay ~0.001% for a single, instant transaction up to several million). It’s not actually too difficult to access this through a brokerage. That said, if you could really get 0.1% from them it’d probably be considered good at retail.
dazc 7y ago
I agree, Monzo is great for small transactions and travelling but I'm not rushing to switch from Barclays as my main bank.
dastx 7y ago
For credit cards, check Tandem Bank. Worked there until a couple of weeks ago, they do several credit cards including one with 0.5% cashback on all transactions. Plus the usual no fx fees etc.
- randomvectors 7y ago
  Over the last day since you wrote this I opened an account with Tandem, had to start a savings account with them even though I wasn't interested in it, applied for the cashback card, got declined despite of a good credit score, and closed my account. The person who I contacted about the account closure was ending his messages with ":D". Just a bad experience overall and I wouldn't recommend it.
kingosticks 7y ago
I think calling the app nicer is an understatement. It's lightyears ahead of other banks. The use abroad is fantastic and it's the reason I originally got their prepaid card. Some UK banks do offer a similar service with no fee and/or low exchange rate, I think Nationwide's clarity card is one but that's a credit card so withdrawing cash is costly (IIRC). I also like Monzo's saving pots idea but since they apparently can't provide any proper financial statements to go along with them they are pretty useless to me. I really don't understand how that is supposed to work if you need to complete a tax return. My local bank branch closed down last month. And to be honest it was a frustrating experience of queueing up to talk to someone who sometimes knew less than what I read from the website. So, considering how trivial it is to switch current account in the UK, I'm looking at it from the other angle - why would I stay with my current old-school bank?
nmca 7y ago
Customer support. It's absolutely light years ahead of HSBC etc
rdlou 7y ago
For me, having no physical branches has been ace. When I was with barclays, I could call them up, spend 45 minutes on the phone to someone, only to be told I have to go to a branch to get a statement (or something stupid like that). I'd then walk to a branch, stand in line for 20 minutes, to be told they can't do that at that branch and I'd have to ring up some other number. That sort of thing happened regularly enough (probably twice in my last year) to make me lose trust in the competance of the people I was speaking to. Monzo having 1 point of contact means they can't push you off onto someone else/a branch/a different phone number etc. And every time I've used the help chat on there I've had me issues resolved rapidly. When I was in mexico, a restaurants card machine said a payment didn't go through, but my monzo app said it did. So i kept the receipt and did the transaction again. This time their card machine said it worked. I kept the receipt for a week in case the £60 showed back up in my account but it didn't. Within 2 minutes on the chat with monzo, £60 was just put back into my account. No fuss. I guarantee you couldn't pick up a phone/go to a branch with a standard bank and get the money back that quickly
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
IshKebab 7y ago
I've opened a joint account with Monzo and with 1st direct. Guess which one took an hour on the phone and which one took 10 seconds in an app. I've switched all my banking to them. So much better than high street banks and I haven't had to talk to a single person.

Folcon 7y ago

I wouldn't undervalue the effect of getting a notification every time your account gets used with additional details and the trivial ability to look back over past transactions whenever you want. I'm constantly surprised by how useful the app is.

jon-wood 7y ago
That alone has been something that keeps on Monzo. I once had someone try to buy a flight with my card - I immediately got a notification, froze my card to prevent further payments, and had the whole thing resolved within 20 minutes of the first payment. With a conventional account likely the first I’d have known of it was when I tried to make a payment and it was declined, and I’d then have to unpick everything. I’ll also admit I have on occasions gone through my transaction history the morning after to work out which bar I ended up in.

shawabawa3 7y ago

> - no physical branches Massive positive for me. I've never had a good experience going to a physical bank branch (if they're ever even open), and now I'll never have to go again

dazc 7y ago
I recently visited my local branch after shooting myself in the foot when re-installing their app and locking my account. After waiting a couple of minutes, a lovely lady sorted out my problem with no fuss at all. I agree, mostly I never need to step foot in a branch but sometimes it helps to be reminded that there are advantages of doing business 'face to face'.
kurtisc 7y ago
I agree. If a bank has physical branches to fall back on, they can squander the online/phone story. This has happened with another bank I use which has a website with a broken account creation form and phone lines that just die. For most banks, they might as well not have any branches as I can't get to them at a reasonable opening hour and they have no incentive to change that.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  > I agree. If a bank has physical branches to fall back on, they can squander the online/phone story And meanwhile First Direct has a mediocre website and terrible mobile app experience when compared to the likes of Halifax, TSB, RBS, Barclays, all of which are sub-par compared to the likes of Monzo or Starling as far as the app experience goes. Then again, Monzo and Starling don't have a desktop experience, so good luck if you wan't to do anything more than just looking at a few transactions on the go.
collyw 7y ago
Taking away the option of doing something is positive?
- Jonnax 7y ago
  One of my bank accounts didn't let me change my address online. I had to go to the bank and do it. A branchless bank must have an alternative
  - collyw 7y ago
    So what you actually need is the ability to change your address online. Not the ability to go into a physical branch removed.

maccard 7y ago

> no option to top up using a credit card from another bank Can you top up your HSBC account with a credit card from another bank? A Monzo account is just another bank account. > no physical branches Is this really a con? Last time I visited a branch (Nationwide), I was told to just go online and fill in the forms. Monzo let you deposit cash and cheques at the post office - my post office has better opening hours, shorter queues, and there are more of them than branches of my specific bank.

randomvectors 7y ago
> Can you top up your HSBC account with a credit card from another bank? A Monzo account is just another bank account. That's a good point. But with the low exchange rate and a modern app, they're also (willingly or not) competing with Revolut. I can top up a Revolut account with a credit card.
- maccard 7y ago
  That's also a fair point - the idea of a bank account has been muddied. Monzo had "pots" which all gain interest, and they come from the same account. I'm not aware of any other bank accounts that offer embedded savings accounts. I do think that comparing a bank account to a prepaid card is a little too much of a stretch thoigh.
  - randomvectors 7y ago
    Revolut isn't just a prepaid card. What they offer is very similar to Monzo, even if they started out differently. That's why they're competing with each other and it's fair to compare them.
    - maccard 7y ago
      I have to say, I'm actually a little muddied on what revolut is. They claim to be a current account, except they're not fscs protected, but they do have some interesting parallels and additions to a current account.

Liquid_Fire 7y ago

For me the killer feature is foreign currency transactions with no fees at the MasterCard exchange rate, both online and abroad. My "traditional" bank charges me a flat fee and a percentage for any transactions in other currencies.

randomvectors 7y ago
Yep, that's a massive positive that I forgot to mention. In that space they're competing with Revolut rather than the traditional banks. Many people's setup will be traditional bank for everyday banking + Revolut for travel. Monzo can potentially replace both if it gains traction and people trust it enough.
sambe 7y ago
I don't know what the MasterCard exchange rate is. However, someone recently told me regarding their credit card: "they give me the wholesale exchange rate, which is great". It turned out not to be so great (~1% wide market). It's good not to pay an additional fee/spread on top, but it can still be a poor deal overall.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  This is their convertor below. $10000 dollars cost £7,867.91 I googled $100 USD to GBP and it comes out as: £7,859.50 Percentage difference: 0.106947% https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/convert-currency.html https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/con...
  - sambe 7y ago
    Google isn’t really an authority. The Google rate could be bad and MasterCard 0.1% worse. They could be from different times. Also, the MasterCard site says indicative only - if I convert the amount back again, MasterCard claims they are giving me free money. GBPUSD spot is 0.002% wide (so you’d expect to pay ~0.001% for a single, instant transaction up to several million). It’s not actually too difficult to access this through a brokerage. That said, if you could really get 0.1% from them it’d probably be considered good at retail.

dazc 7y ago

I agree, Monzo is great for small transactions and travelling but I'm not rushing to switch from Barclays as my main bank.

dastx 7y ago

For credit cards, check Tandem Bank. Worked there until a couple of weeks ago, they do several credit cards including one with 0.5% cashback on all transactions. Plus the usual no fx fees etc.

randomvectors 7y ago
Over the last day since you wrote this I opened an account with Tandem, had to start a savings account with them even though I wasn't interested in it, applied for the cashback card, got declined despite of a good credit score, and closed my account. The person who I contacted about the account closure was ending his messages with ":D". Just a bad experience overall and I wouldn't recommend it.

kingosticks 7y ago

I think calling the app nicer is an understatement. It's lightyears ahead of other banks. The use abroad is fantastic and it's the reason I originally got their prepaid card. Some UK banks do offer a similar service with no fee and/or low exchange rate, I think Nationwide's clarity card is one but that's a credit card so withdrawing cash is costly (IIRC). I also like Monzo's saving pots idea but since they apparently can't provide any proper financial statements to go along with them they are pretty useless to me. I really don't understand how that is supposed to work if you need to complete a tax return. My local bank branch closed down last month. And to be honest it was a frustrating experience of queueing up to talk to someone who sometimes knew less than what I read from the website. So, considering how trivial it is to switch current account in the UK, I'm looking at it from the other angle - why would I stay with my current old-school bank?

nmca 7y ago

Customer support. It's absolutely light years ahead of HSBC etc

rdlou 7y ago

For me, having no physical branches has been ace. When I was with barclays, I could call them up, spend 45 minutes on the phone to someone, only to be told I have to go to a branch to get a statement (or something stupid like that). I'd then walk to a branch, stand in line for 20 minutes, to be told they can't do that at that branch and I'd have to ring up some other number. That sort of thing happened regularly enough (probably twice in my last year) to make me lose trust in the competance of the people I was speaking to. Monzo having 1 point of contact means they can't push you off onto someone else/a branch/a different phone number etc. And every time I've used the help chat on there I've had me issues resolved rapidly. When I was in mexico, a restaurants card machine said a payment didn't go through, but my monzo app said it did. So i kept the receipt and did the transaction again. This time their card machine said it worked. I kept the receipt for a week in case the £60 showed back up in my account but it didn't. Within 2 minutes on the chat with monzo, £60 was just put back into my account. No fuss. I guarantee you couldn't pick up a phone/go to a branch with a standard bank and get the money back that quickly

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

IshKebab 7y ago

I've opened a joint account with Monzo and with 1st direct. Guess which one took an hour on the phone and which one took 10 seconds in an app. I've switched all my banking to them. So much better than high street banks and I haven't had to talk to a single person.