Monzo: Fairer banking. New fees (for the minority)

ZeroSum

Stenwold said:

SnowTiger said:

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

https://monzo.com/blog/withdrawal-and-card-delivery-fees

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Perhaps.

But what advantages does Monzo have over, say, a Virgin Bank account paying 2% interest on balances up to £1,000?

Things must be getting very tough for Monzo.

Ease is king. 
I can't imagine many people choose Monzo for the interest rate (I don't even know what mine is). Most people go for Monzo because of it's usability, they have a fantastic app which is so easy to use.

My guess is the change is to try and encourage those customers that use this account as a 'secondary account' to start using it as a full current account.

How do these fees encourage people to change from secondary to primary account? 

Stenwold

ZeroSum said:

Stenwold said:

SnowTiger said:

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

https://monzo.com/blog/withdrawal-and-card-delivery-fees

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Perhaps.

But what advantages does Monzo have over, say, a Virgin Bank account paying 2% interest on balances up to £1,000?

Things must be getting very tough for Monzo.

Ease is king. 
I can't imagine many people choose Monzo for the interest rate (I don't even know what mine is). Most people go for Monzo because of it's usability, they have a fantastic app which is so easy to use.

My guess is the change is to try and encourage those customers that use this account as a 'secondary account' to start using it as a full current account.

How do these fees encourage people to change from secondary to primary account? 

Because you get a bigger allowance if Monzo can see you're using this as your main current account (or hitting their criteria,anyway). 

PRAISETHESUN

Not hard to cheese the criteria though - £500 monthly pay in (ok every 35 days but close enough) and a single direct debit (only needs to be active, doesn't actually seem to need to pay out each month). But yea I tend to agree, I don't think these changes will have the effect Monzo really want other than to have people stop using their accounts for the occasional cash withdrawal whilst overseas, and turn them to other options such as Starling.

Stuart_W

"Will only affect 20% of customers"
I'm actually amazed as many as 1 in 5 Monzo customers withdraw more than £250 cash a month.
I did the internet banking revolution the first time round in 1999, when I joined smile. Been waiting for cashless to take over ever since.
I hardly ever withdraw cash, I'm sure I'm not on my own thereBeing an app-based bank I would have through Mo. nzo was mainly used by those who prefer more cashless options. The odd withdrawal for most people maybe, and a very small few who rely on it, but as many as 20% withdrawing this much? What are they spending it on? The places where you absolutely need cash are shrinking, fast. It will soon only be tax avoidance and money laundering left. 

It will ultimately only be legislation that will prevent some kind of limit or fee on cash withdrawals becoming the standard in the long term IMHO.  

[Deleted User]

Stuart_W said:

"Will only affect 20% of customers"
I'm actually amazed as many as 1 in 5 Monzo customers withdraw more than £250 cash a month.
I did the internet banking revolution the first time round in 1999, when I joined smile. Been waiting for cashless to take over ever since.
I hardly ever withdraw cash, I'm sure I'm not on my own thereBeing an app-based bank I would have through Mo. nzo was mainly used by those who prefer more cashless options. The odd withdrawal for most people maybe, and a very small few who rely on it, but as many as 20% withdrawing this much? What are they spending it on? The places where you absolutely need cash are shrinking, fast. It will soon only be tax avoidance and money laundering left. 

It will ultimately only be legislation that will prevent some kind of limit or fee on cash withdrawals becoming the standard in the long term IMHO.  

Quite sad (and small minded) that people are accused of being tax dodgers or worse for using cash. 
I use much less cash that I did before but the App banks are trying to 'sell' their cut down model as full service banking.

adamp87

Stuart_W said:

"Will only affect 20% of customers"
I'm actually amazed as many as 1 in 5 Monzo customers withdraw more than £250 cash a month.
I did the internet banking revolution the first time round in 1999, when I joined smile. Been waiting for cashless to take over ever since.
I hardly ever withdraw cash, I'm sure I'm not on my own thereBeing an app-based bank I would have through Mo. nzo was mainly used by those who prefer more cashless options. The odd withdrawal for most people maybe, and a very small few who rely on it, but as many as 20% withdrawing this much? What are they spending it on? The places where you absolutely need cash are shrinking, fast. It will soon only be tax avoidance and money laundering left. 

It will ultimately only be legislation that will prevent some kind of limit or fee on cash withdrawals becoming the standard in the long term IMHO.  

There’s still a decent percentage of the population who use cash, get paid cash in hand or prefer cash too.

Its not something that’s going to go away in the next decade at all, but is of course reduced with some parts of the population.

We most probably will always need a bit of cash for small businesses, old car parking machines.. etc 

ozaz

adamp87 said:

Aside from the App, I don’t see why I’d choose Monzo over a regular current account. Especially if I needed access to cash during the month, being charged for it seems absurd.

You wouldn’t be charged anything if you use Monzo as an actual current account (money regularly going in, at least one direct debit regularly going out) so the concern here is moot.

adamp87

ozaz said:

adamp87 said:

Aside from the App, I don’t see why I’d choose Monzo over a regular current account. Especially if I needed access to cash during the month, being charged for it seems absurd.

You wouldn’t be charged anything if you use Monzo as an actual current account (money regularly going in, at least one direct debit regularly going out) so the concern here is moot.

That’s fair enough I suppose. But I think they’ve positioned themselves via marketing where they want to come away from.

An app bases account used for day to day spend, not a main account. At least to others I know with the accounts. 

ZeroSum

Stenwold said:

ZeroSum said:

Stenwold said:

SnowTiger said:

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

https://monzo.com/blog/withdrawal-and-card-delivery-fees

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Perhaps.

But what advantages does Monzo have over, say, a Virgin Bank account paying 2% interest on balances up to £1,000?

Things must be getting very tough for Monzo.

Ease is king. 
I can't imagine many people choose Monzo for the interest rate (I don't even know what mine is). Most people go for Monzo because of it's usability, they have a fantastic app which is so easy to use.

My guess is the change is to try and encourage those customers that use this account as a 'secondary account' to start using it as a full current account.

How do these fees encourage people to change from secondary to primary account? 

Because you get a bigger allowance if Monzo can see you're using this as your main current account (or hitting their criteria,anyway). 

But if only using a secondary then don't need bigger allowances & criteria wouldn't affect anything. 

ozaz

adamp87 said:
 That’s fair enough I suppose. But I think they’ve positioned themselves via marketing where they want to come away from.

An app bases account used for day to day spend, not a main account. At least to others I know with the accounts. 

I think that perception is more of an unintended carryover effect from the days they were just a prepaid card (pre 2018 if I recall correctly). Since they became a fully licenced bank I don't think they've been actively promoting themselves as just a pocket money account, but the perception seems to have persisted.