Yeah, it really should have this discretionary / mandatory spending split as a first-class aspect of the app. In fact, you could arguably split the entire app this way and have two quite different sets of tools for interacting with them; envelope budgeting for discretionary, and perhaps better deals suggestions for the mandatory. But, alas, the main way you interact with the app is… a rather useless feed of transactions. it’s the Wrong Abstraction.
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As with @davidwalton I’d want to see and use it before passing judgement but initial thoughts are:
- I was very much pro UI as it is now, but actually I quite like it, it does simply what I would want it to for the most part
- I think if Monzo want to get rid of the image of the pre-paid card, they really should move the “add money” button. I’m aware it’s there as-is, but it screams “top-up card to me”
- I don’t like how you can’t hid the feed, it looks nice in that screenshot but can get messy with pot movements, in my opinion.
- Pulse graph at the top would be great
- I liked being able to see “at a glance” my full balance across all pots and accounts, so that would be useful.
- Finally, a banner for upgrades that is there if you need it, but not obtrusive.
Nice Job Monzo, this UI might help tempt me back one day…
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Totally agree on “add money”. As someone who has their salary paid in to Monzo, that action is completely useless for me 
. We’re thinking about this right now!
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Overall, pretty positive! It depends a quite bit on the customer and their expectations/how they think about money though.
For example, we tested with Monzo and non-Monzo customers. Something I found quite interesting in the prototype A testing was how folks who use more traditional banks reacted really strongly to anything ‘social’ in their app.
The prototype had something like this if you scrolled down to the bottom of the screen:
Whilst Monzo customers tended to react really well and think it seemed really convenient and useful, a couple of non-Monzo customers found it borderline offensive to see people there 
. Perhaps this is partly because it’s a prototype and therefore these aren’t people they know. A lot of it we thought though came down to their expectations - if they’re not used to paying people back from their banking app, it certainly feels foreign to have faces in there.
If I’ve learned anything in my 6 years at Monzo, it’s how personal and individual money is to people. It’s so interesting!
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This is such a great topic. Personalisation and customisation in general has been a really consistent theme throughout the discovery and concept process. As mentioned by others in the community, there is a lot to balance and think about, so we certainly are not ruling anything out at this stage as we continue to learn through the iterations we release.
What I would say is that based on the insights @emmag has shared in this post, the design of the interface and engineering approach to the infrastructure of this screen is very intentional in terms of having super solid foundations that allow for better personalisation and enabling a far more personalised experience with Monzo.
Through future iterations (and by having both staff and the community use these builds on a daily basis), we’ll uncover more insight of and the foundations we’re putting in place now will enable us to do so.
For transparency, with hiding loans as an example, some questions on our mind include:
- What approach creates the most consistency across all the accounts or products a customer may have
- What level of hiding products is the must useful for customers when thinking about the jobs they are undertaking? Is it completely hiding the product, is it hiding the balance, or could it be that reducing the visibility by changing it’s position in the overview for example (so there’s easy access for a monthly view of your loan, but not in your face every time you visit the app).
- How do we ensure that customers do not miss key information about a product. With a hidden loan as an example there’s potentially critical states to highlight such as a missed payment. By hiding a loan there also becomes less opportunity to support customers in paying it down, and we’ll want to think through whether the experience we create has any potential to encourage behaviours that could lead to customers falling in to debt if they struggle with managing money as an example.
In summary… lots to think through, well defined defaults need to be put in place, and by engaging with customers I’m really confident we’re moving in a direction that means better visibility, control, and personalisation for all 
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This is important to me. I don’t need to see all my pots, savings, non-used accounts (but with a balance I want reflected in Trends), loans, Flex etc every time I log in. I log in frequently and usually it’s solely for my main account balance and transactions.
Almost everything else can be hidden but with easy access for the few times I am doing a full financial overview (which is generally once a month).
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I think, for me, I’d prefer a level of abstraction away from products. I’m not so fussed with individual savings accounts, for example, as what I’m using them for.
To take an example:
- I want to know that I’ve the right amount set aside for bills this month. I’m less fussed in seeing my different bills pot, more that it’ll all just get paid.
- I have loads of savings accounts at different fixed and variable rates. I don’t have a goal per account, instead having a couple of big ones (bathroom refurbishment, an emergency fund etc). I don’t want to see the individual accounts - I want to see that my goals are met or are on/off track
- I want Monzo to reduce my cognitive load on my spending money for the month. I want to be able to tell it that I’ll spend a lot next week, then have Monzo calculate my daily available spend for lunch, incidentals etc. Or plan a move from savings and have the app know that that’s coming.
Of course, lots of folk won’t work that way. But I think I’d want that later of abstraction on top of my accounts first, then fall back to an account view if I’ve not set up my goals, spending plans etc.
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@Peter_G, this is great to hear and along the lines of something we’ve been concept testing too as v1 evolves.
Glanceable insights that make sense of all the things you have in Monzo (Pots, Accounts, Bills, Goals etc). Essentially, creating a financial picture and surfacing the information that you are potentially spending time manually working out currently.
Done well, at a glance you’d understand how things are going, and create clarity on what needs your attention / where you may need to dig deeper given a certain situation. And again, this would be tailored to whats important for you.
We’ll bring that as a topic for the community for sure!
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Love the sound of this, and the engagement here on the forum.
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Why stop at Monzo accounts?! I want my financial life there. So manual accounts please, as well as all the connected ones. (Then, because I’m greedy, mortgages, loans, investments elsewhere!)
Be still my beating (hot coral) heart! 
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Couldn’t agree more, Peter! Accounts outside of Monzo are very much part of this vision, you’ll see more on that soon! 
A key thing will be enabling enough control over what feeds the data (without overcomplicating the experience). You could connect an account but not want it to feed in to combined balance for example, and thats fine. But control is key here to ensure the numbers and insights make sense for people individually!
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Pleeeeease add manual accounts/loans/savings etc. 
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I love this, and to an extent don’t at the same time.
The reason for this is that one thing Monzo has really done well, I think, is give really deep insights into connected accounts.
And the whole thread here if you look at monzo as an app sounds great, a really great financial hub for everything going on.
But, my concern would be the focus lasers onto that, and the core banking features for monzo as a bank (joint accounts, saving rates, account types) get forgotten about in that quest.
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Agreed. We certainly won’t be over optimising for external accounts, nor neglecting core Monzo features. If anything we’d like to leverage core Monzo features that are currently tricky to find.
In terms of connected accounts, the general principle is that by adding one, it would compliment your existing monzo experience and provide visibility (if you have external accounts), however the screen is in no way dependent on them. The way I think of it, is that a mark of success for this overview screen is that it scales up and down elegantly. So the interface is powerful for customers with a Monzo current account only, but that same interface can scale should you have more things in Monzo (joint account, savings, loans, external accounts), without becoming overwhelming.
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This sounds great, can’t wait to see it in action 
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@leepethers for President. Or something.
Absolutely loving your thought processes.
Are you working with the US team on this? I know they are thinking a lot about budgeting, and have some folk who worked on Simple that had a particular budgeting style.
Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts. Manual Accounts.
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Amen brother. Take me straight to my balance and transactions!
Loving how the new designs look!
The only thing I ask is decrease the friction when transferring money between my joint and personal accounts!
It used to be a 2 click operation, just Add Money > From another account.
Now its Add Money > scroll the list > other ways to add money > from another account.
Its a minor change, but it just makes it that little bit harder to send yourself £5 for a coffee etc.
n.b. Jumping on the trend of people asking for early access. I’m a QA tester so free labour?? 
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WOW this is cool, can’t wait to try it in labs! Will bring Monzo closer to what other challenger banks are doing with cool app design.