After savings pots, what integrations next?

I’d love to see ISA offerings, and possibly an integration with Atom to offer longer term savings

2 Likes

Most people who saves money on a regular basis doesn´t know how to invest it.

Because the investment industry is highly professionalized, product offerings are usually very hard to understand for non-financially literate people. This barrier makes it difficult for them to take action on their savings leading to people either making poor choices or siting on cash.

I believe that if Monzo were to bundle different investment options into easy to understand packages lots of users would benefit from it.

Just get rid of all the financial jargon and create investment packages that a 10 year old can understand. Put together a representative array of these options (fixed income, equities, long term, short term, etc…) and offer them to the community. I would even guive them funny names to demistify the whole investment think and help people get rid of their fears. I think it´s about finding a way to turn something complex and scary into a funny, exciting and simple to understand.

7 Likes

Traditionally yes, it’s definitely been an exclusive club which has done its best through using jargon and long, complicated terms which serve no purpose.

I’m not a fan of robo advisors. Paying a fee for something you can do yourself seems counterintuitive if you’re trying to increase your savings. Freetrade https://freetrade.io is a very good however as it’s fee free (unless you want to pay for instant trade) and lacks the aloofness of traditional investing. Complete with funny names (slow internet for BT)

Is that best served by an integration or is it better accessed through their apps? My opinion is to get the most out of Freetrade the app will always be the best option, Plum would work as an integration

5 Likes

I think Freetrade is a wonderful option when it comes to trimming down costs.

However, I am of the opinion that buying and selling single tickets still adds to much complexity for non-financially literate people.

At the end of the day, there is a reason why a whole industry does that for a living… even the most basic research into a company may involve digesting financial statements and so on. An the truth is that most people don´t have an understanding of things such as how much debt a company has sitting on its balance sheet…

I am an advocate of not putting in the hands of people tools that they are not prepared to use. If people loses money thorugh potential Monzo offereings that´s bad news for everybody.

I think it may be best to offer prearranged packages that have already been derisked (by investment professionals). In the case of equity offerings that may be something such as custom Index offerings.

3 Likes

I agree if people are trying to act like a baller but simple things like ETFs are basically what you’d invest in through another company so why not do it yourself? I’ve come from a position of never investing as it seemed so over my head and not designed for people like me. Telling people it’s their heads and not encouraging them isn’t an approach I’d advocate. Easy access to information like this https://blog.freetrade.io/whats-a-stock-index-9617012dacf0 is easy enough for the most inexperienced newbie

1 Like

Agreed. I think investing is something that one can learn by putting the hours and effort and I would always encourage people do develop their financial litteracy.

However, In my experience these trade platforms usually attract crowds that don´t quite fit with the definition above but rather speculative-oriented individuals seeking quick profits achived by buying and selling tickets without really understanding the underlying companies. This is dangerous and usually ends up poorly for them on the long term, although some enjoy fabulous periods of short term gains. Not much different than rolling a dice though, that´s why I would be weary of building features that may encourage these kinds of behavious…

As you were pointing out, Index ETF´s it´s indeed a whole different story. In my opinion, these may be a more suitable product.

1 Like

I hope the focus stays on adding more savings account options for the moment to be honest. I think if they can add a few more it would really give a good image of how the marketplace will work.

After this id love to be able to show my LISA in my pots. I only log in to view it once a month at the moment so would be nice to have this in a pot for a quick glance

4 Likes

Integration of a credit card, with credit provided by a credit card company and notifications, transaction enrichment and analytics handled by Monzo

3 Likes

The poll’s up! Vote away :smiley:

Would LOVE me some full Amex (and other credit/charge cards) plus current account integration. I’m one of the ones who uses Amex EVERYWHERE I can, which makes summary useless

2 Likes

I agree. If there were a children’s savings account linked that would be great, right now I have Child ISAs with Halifax but the only way for me to view the balance/statement is annually by post or going into a branch with my ID and their birth certificates. High interest would be important though i.e. 3/4% currently.

I have a pot setup for my 6 year old son so he can learn how to save for himself which works fine, except that my wife isn’t able to view the pot (so shared pot feature too please!).

Automatic pot withdrawals would be great

Surprisingly, last time I spoke to Tom, he said a lot of the open-banking stuff was only a few months away. Surprising because I’ve never heard of it elsewhere on here from staff…

2 Likes

When was the last time you spoke to Tom? :clock10: :calendar: :thinking:

Good question. I think it was the first Open Office at the new site. Ten weeks, maybe?

1 Like

+1 to this idea. Pick a few tracker ETFs with low fees (global tracker, uk tracker), offer them to monzo users as a fixed fee S&S ISA pot for monthly saving - instant investment for beginners, without all the jargon, worthless advice and percentage fees associated with traditional investment or robo advisors. I assume this is what the poll means by ‘packaged investment’ though I doubt many would know what that means.

2 Likes

Interesting to see integrations like Onedox at 33%. Did we ever find out why that was dropped?

2 Likes

No, but I’d guess at a business model clash / Monzo’s focus being somewhere…

It seems I’ve given this more thought before:

Also, @simonb offered to find out more:

Simon, is there anything that you can share?

I was told from the partnerships team that we aren’t onboarding any non-AISP partners to our API just yet. Once we’re in a position to do this then a direct Onedox integration should be possible :grinning:

2 Likes

Fantastic, thanks for letting us know. And an eminently sensible strategy to boot!

2 Likes