What is the point of the Marcus bonus rate?

poseidon1

boingy said:

Much of banking and other stuff (insurance, utilities etc) make their profits from customer laziness. Sad but true.

Indeed, which is the strategy now being adopted by Chase in offering credit cards alongside they current and savings accounts. 

Right now Marcus are  a savings bank with no profit making activity especially on the lending side of things where most banks aim to make their margins.

Although Marcus arrived here before Chase, Chase have galloped past them by way of customer numbers and  services offered . Chase are making a real attempt to challenge neo banks such as Monzo.

By contrast, if the article below can be believed, Marcus plans for UK expansion seems to revolve around rolling out a robo investment service via their banking app.

https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/05/17/us-goldman-sachs-marcus-uk-exclusive#:~:text=By Reuters,Goldman's business in the country.

If they are thinking their deposit account holders might be attracted to stockmarket investing and switch their safe cash into a limited range of managed investments, they should heed the fact that Chase's acquisition of Nutmeg has still failed to stem the annual losses of that investment service.

Hattie627

When Marcus first launched two or three years ago, they offered the most competitive instant access account on the market, although that was assuming that the bonus rate applied to the account. This situation lasted for a good while, if I remember correctly, and Marcus was the "go to" instant access account discussed on this forum. Times have changed. I liked it when I used Marcus for instant access funds; transfers were instant and the account was easy to use.

cloud_dog

Even with their 'always on' bonus rate we haven't used them for years (ages) due to their very uncompetitive interest rates (in total).  Is it 3.75% in total ATM?  Phah!!! 

SeriousHoax

My Marcus has been sitting with £1 in it for a long time now. It was good when it first launched and held the top spot for a while.

leosayer

Hattie627 said:

When Marcus first launched two or three years ago, they offered the most competitive instant access account on the market, although that was assuming that the bonus rate applied to the account. This situation lasted for a good while, if I remember correctly, and Marcus was the "go to" instant access account discussed on this forum. Times have changed. I liked it when I used Marcus for instant access funds; transfers were instant and the account was easy to use.

Marcus transfers (to and from my First Direct account) take around 2-3 minutes.

Chase transfers are truly instant. You even get a little party streamer emoji when you transfer in funds.

masonic

leosayer said:

Chase transfers are truly instant. You even get a little party streamer emoji when you transfer in funds.

Mine from Chase to First Direct have never been instant. They have gone into a pending state in the app for anything from typically up to a minute or two, but at one time up to an hour (though that relates to a specific period of time when their overzealous security checks were inconveniencing many people). Transfers into Chase are instant for me. The difference for me is noticeable compared with, say, Cahoot.

Xenon

I still have a few thousand in my Marcus account

A simple clean website and pretty much instant transfers (week not weekend) are fine with me.

The interest rate is not great but will keep for now