Alcohol Purchase Restriction Feature

It’s logical but if you’re determined, you’ll find a way around it.

How many supermarkets don’t have a cash point outside? You’d just take the cash out the wall and then buy whatever you wanted.

I guess the same could be said for gambling block.

For me the most effective way would be to see exactly how much I’m spending on the thing I’m trying to cut down on.

So custom categories and the ability to split a transaction into more than one category would do it (coz supermarkets). This way I could have an alcohol category (for example) and see how much I spent on it monthly with the aim of cutting back for the following month.

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I suppose the difference is that it’s very easy to spend £20 at SkyBet while I’m typing this post

The ability to breakdown my transactions by merchant I think would help too.

Monzo has an integration with flux which might be one way this could be implemented

Flux allows you to see an itemized list of your purchases in any store they have partnered with

Currently they are active in KFC, Itzu, Just Eat and a few others, but if they were in co-op for example, it might be possible to reject any purchases which contain alcohol

It’s probably the case that monzo only see’s the itemized list of purchases after the transaction has been successful, so additional work on the part of flux and monzo would be required

As the OP said, there’s always a way around these things, but adding some additional friction would be a big help I’m sure

Here’s flux:

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That would be the biggest stumbling block.

When someone taps their card to pay, the supermarket would need to send an itemised list of products to Monzo who then check not only if you have funds but also your exclusion list and then approve/reject the transaction based on those two factors.

I think adding Flux into the mix would complicate things further as it’s another link in the chain to go wrong.

So…

  1. Would supermarkets give up this data (unlikely as it’s very valuable and is why Flux is likely struggling to get a big chain on board).
  2. Could Monzo keep accurate and up-to-date data when they already struggle with merchant data
  3. For both points above to work, it requires investment to setup and maintain from all payment processors in all shops, as well as Monzo doing things at their end too.

I like the idea but I personally I can’t see it happening for a whole bunch reasons.

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Lets be honest. This is never going to happen unless it becomes law (and maybe it should be, but that is another discussion). There are just too many variables and expenses for all parties to implement otherwise. Gambling was easy because of the merchant code.

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I have been greatly overwhelmed and impressed by the response on this forum. And many of the technical obstacles have been articulately described.

I perhaps think that one day the technology will make it possible, but in the meantime at least having SPECIFIC alcohol category within Monzo (Alongside bills family groceries et cetera) Could be a good stopgap.

I surrendered my anonymity as a recovering alcoholic in order only to float this idea to the community and in the hope that Monzo moderators and executives also get wind of the conversation in order that maybe something can be implemented.

I can speak from personal experience, even having the option To add alcohol as a purchase that is registered within the app which would then show a problem drinker that they are spending X percentage on alcohol, may slowly plant the seed in their mind that they need to do something about it.

So whilst the technical issues of actually creating a block do appear from the feedback to exist, having it as a separate category is definitely not a harmful thing.

If you are a problem drinker, and you look at your monthly spending and realise that half your money is going on alcohol, then it is there in your face.

I genuinely believe this is something which Monzo must look at. I am grateful for everybody’s intelligent responses to this thread. God bless

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Good news on this front (sort of)…

Custom categories are coming soon, so you can create this and whatever other ones you like. The bad news is that it is rumoured to be part of Monzo Plus which is the paid for premium account.

You can do this with Emma Pro and (I think) Yolt already. The main problem is just the time and effort it takes to split your transactions. You probably need to keep receipts and update in the app all the time to get anything like an accurate picture.

They were among the first integrations for Monzo and Starling, but just haven’t delivered anything remotely useful yet…

You make an interesting point. And obviously financial interests are what drive or businesses. But this is something that could really help people, I really hope Monzo take the time to review the very intelligent threads that have been made in this conversation. I myself would be willing to become involved in any implementation efforts

Totally agree with all of this ^

A booze blocker would be great. I’d also like a ‘thing’ that helps me stop eating empty calories at work because it was someone’s birthday or something, but my bank account is never going to be able to do that. Some things can only be done with will power :unamused:

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