Woke up this morning to find 3 out of 4 standing orders that were due to be paid had been declined (plenty of funds available).
Spoke to support who quickly worked out that they were due to go to RBS accounts which was undergoing scheduled maintenance until 1445 today .
Apparently with a legacy bank it would just keep retrying until it went through, but as Monzo give instant notifications this behaviour would result in lots of declined notifications which isnāt desirable.
Iām told they are working to suppress these notifications which will hopefully be implemented soon.
In the mean time, the only option is to process a manual faster payment which I have now doneā¦ A decline reason and āretryā button would have really helped here as it would save having to re-type reference numbers etc.
Thought I would share in case anyone else is having the same issue.
Definitely a weakness in the product which really needs fixed. A concern of mine changing Direct Debits overā¦ hopefully it doesnāt come back to bite me. Iāll be watching every month the day theyāre taken!
Ah interesting - I had one declined for a credit card payment to TSB. I figured Iād put in the account number wrong or something (Iād changed the amount so cancelled my old payment and set up a new one). I havenāt had a chance to check it but as Iād copied and pasted from a statement Iām hoping it was this same issue.
I donāt think it is a weakness. More that other banks are massively behind and need to catch up in terms of real time banking. Monzo do need to do something. However, I donāt think there can be a pretty solution.
How is it not a weakness if a Direct Debit (Iām unsure on this one, have heard it mentioned but donāt know) or standing order that people rely on can fail? Itās definitely a weakness.
So much of banking isnāt āprettyā in terms of the code behind it, but it still needs to work.
Iām all for cleaning up everything possible, but sometimes things just need to be hack-jobbed into working.
Certainly a weakness. Other banks retry when insufficient funds such as outgoing the same day as incoming payments from salary. Or like this, when something else goes wrong.
Ah the old āexpecting failureā vs āinstant notificationsā problem: legacy banks expect their systems and other banks to be unavailable and so automatically retry, however, new banks want to keep their customers informed to the second and so leave the retry choice up to the customerā¦
I wonder if the scheduled maintenance windows are āknown and circulated in advanceā so Monzo could just āsoft failā and go āReceiving bank undergoing maintenance - transaction will be reattempted in 6 hours timeā. Unscheduled maintenance/remote failure - perhaps things like SOs have a āhidden soft failureā option and they are auto-retried automatically with just a āPendingā message.
Having given this some thought (itās the second time this has happened to me) Iād really like Monzo to do something about this or at least give an update on what they are doing. Itās not a pleasant feeling waking up to a bunch of decline messages and itās also not pleasant to have to manually re-enter all of the details to make the payment(s).
Longer term, suppressing the decline messages may be the answer, but in the short term can we have a āretryā option or at least allow support to retry them if requested by a customer (I did ask yesterday but was told computer says no). This is exacerbated by the longer than usual response times support are currently encountering.
Iād also like to know if Direct Debits are also affected by this issue?
Does anyone know what Starling/Revolut etc. do in this situation? Is it handled any better?
I have 22 scheduled payments from my account so this is important to me.
At the moment, Direct Debits are affected by this issue on Monzo. It is recommended that you donāt have them come out the same day that your salary (or other credit to cover them) comes in (donāt know if you remember, but you posted further up in this thread!):
And the issue was more recently confirmed, further down the thread:
Agree that this isnāt a good situation, hopefully sort it out before adding too many more current accounts. Itās the kind of little thing that could have big consequences for some people, especially with the charges and fees some payees have for missed direct debits.
And I agree that a simple āretryā option for the failed standing orders would be great.
I naively believed that if there was an issue with a d/d or s/o Monzo would keep trying on the allotted day, and not fail it until midnight of that day.
Is there a reason why this is not possible?
Edit to add: For me this is a massive issue, and something that would definitely stop me moving to Monzo fully.
That isnāt necessarily the same issue though. Thatās if you donāt have enough in your account to cover the Direct Debit. What if you do, but the receiving bankās system is down? Will that fail, too? If so, it is quite concerningā¦
I am very disappointed by this issue. To my knowledge, the account is no longer in beta. Why were these issues not identified and resolved through the preview accounts? It makes me feel very uneasy about what else in the account isnāt really functioning correctly.
While I understand wanting to get everything rolled out as soon as possible, thereās only one chance to make a first impression. Testing things on users is all very well while youāre in beta, but many users have no interest in being a tester and want to use systems that have been well tested and ājust workā.
Nothing is being ātestedā here, this is just the way the account works at the moment. This did come up during the Beta, itās somewhere on this forum along with the stated desire to improve this handling mechanism in due courseā¦
Not being in Test is not the same as being finished - that wonāt happen for years (hopefully) as Iām expecting new functionality to be added over numerous development iterations in the future.
I do agree that this one is less than ideal. I hope I never fall foul of it because it is a weakness at the moment. Hopefully it will get a makeover sooner rather than later.
I might be barking up the wrong transaction type here - but arenāt we merging multiple things?
ā standing orders : which the sender sets up and controls
ā direct debits : which the recipient sets up and controls amount and when
ā available funds
ā system down time / failure
From what Iāve read the problem initially was recipient system down time, and a Standing Order? If another system is down, agreed Monzo should reattempt - but for how long?
But weāve also talked about all of the other items above.
Direct Debits I think itās for recipient to reattempt - but if no funds thatās just down to account holder right? You then get into credit rating issues. If Monzo messes these up itās a problem for sure. But not sure Iāve read anything about this - having a bunch of DDs go out same day as pay day isnāt a great idea using any bank.
Anywayyyyy, loving my current account and Monzo overall. That all said Iām only drip feeding SOs, DDs into my account and salary staying elsewhere for a little longer.
Oh, and this is my first community post so please at least try to be nice with your replies!
The impression I get with DDs is that the receiving bank requests but itās up to the paying bank to make sure the money is transferred on the requested day.
If thatās true then itās on āmyā bank to ensure the money gets through on the day in question. At that point, DDs are just the same as a Standing Order in the sense that itās the responsibility of āmyā bank to ensure that āmyā outgoings are transferred correctly.
Iām clearly responsible to ensure funds are in the accountā¦sadly
Itās the downtime that could be a grey area but, if other banks retry automatically, then custom and practice suggests that thatās the way itās done even if I donāt know what rules govern the process.
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sort it out before adding too many more current accounts. Itās the kind of little thing that could have big consequences for some people, especially with the charges and fees some payees have for missed direct debits.
