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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 m

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.
xioxox 7y ago
The Halifax Clarity card does this, and they have highstreet branches.
- grey-area 7y ago
  they have highstreet branches Is that a good thing?

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.

xioxox 7y ago

The Halifax Clarity card does this, and they have highstreet branches.

grey-area 7y ago
they have highstreet branches Is that a good thing?