Honestly, if they offered DD support, and became a bank they’de be a serious contender for a return to FinTech.
I last used them on holiday back in August as a foreign spend card and it was superb. Plus a good ethos. But, I’m old school and without either being a bank or at least reporting back into budgeting tools, it’s a ‘not right now’ from me.
Yes, the fact that they’re not a bank and don’t handle direct debts and standing orders is why I can only use them for spending and not as my main bank.
I use them for pretty much all of my day-to-day spending, where I can’t get benefit from the Monzo cashback.
I haven’t had any issues with them. The app is pretty simple but I’m not expecting it to be more than that. It is what it is - a payment card with no pretensions of banking facilities.
Cashback comes through regularly within 5 days (apart from one glitch a few months back, which was sorted out efficiently).
I use the card in Google wallet and get 1.5%. For me, it doesn’t make sense not to use it.
TRansferring money in and out is handled very quickly and is hardly a burden on my time. No regrets in using it thus far.
I wonder what they will do next, I can’t see the incentive to use them otherwise. They are not a bank, so you actively have to transfer to them. Why would you do that if you don’t get any cashback.
That’s a bold move! As much as I like them, what’s the value of them vs other EMIs apart from wanting to be ethical.
I sort of understand it, the only reason Chase can keep it going is because deep, deep pockets and it was clearly their go to market strategy since nothing else has really been market leading.
For algbra though I hope it isn’t, this may be the beginning of the end. Or, they’ll actually extend it after all under new terms.
From the get go I always suspected for them, this was nothing more than a customer acquisition tool, and so will have been funded from a marketing budget out of investor funds. It never presented itself to me as a long term prospect.
the 1.5% via Apple Pay is continuing, and I think that’s a better fit for them. I don’t see that sticking around forever either. At least not at that rate. Still too loss-leader-customer-acquisition-y to me, with nothing to upsell you to for profit once you’re acquired.
Then there’s the matter of have Algbra really grown and improved their offering during that time they’ve been running this promo? I’m not completely convinced. They’ve barely progressed their road map at all nor have they scaled operations in line with their growth, and it’s still very much beta feeling.
They have a place and a well defined niche in the landscape though. So I think they’ll stick around.
What will be their USP? Once the cashback offers go.
The ethical side is great but if all you’re doing is putting money in and spending it, nothing more, what does it have left to offer?
Nationwide can do that and it provides more banking facilities.
I’m not disputing that providing endless cashback is probably not sustainable without more revenue. Maybe they will offer some sort of paid option.
If they don’t evolve and expand or enhance their offering and options, I sadly fear it will be the end.
The cashback was never their USP.
It was always about the ethics. The sustainability. And being a B-Corp. Transforming your spending habits into a more positive impact on our planet.
They’re a fintech Triodos, and imo, that’s all they really need to be.
Yep - exactly. Cashback was never and can never be their USP because it’s not ‘unique’ in the first place and there’s no way they can compete long term with Chase, Revolut and now Monzo in the ‘Cashback’ field.
I know this is difficult for us here to consider, when we’re discussing this on a ‘fintech’ platform and people are very concerned with chasing the best interest, moving money around to squeeze the most out of banks but for Algbra you need to
I’m actually really disappointed though that they seem absolutely committed to never ever getting a banking licence. I can understand that that’s a very difficult thing to achieve (just as Revolut!) but the fact that they’re not even saying it’s something they’ll hope to get in the future at some point will always, to me, mean they’ll never be a serious alternative to other banks no matter how much you approve of their ethics and want to support them.
I have considered, in the past, about switching to Triodos, but there’s always been 2 things holding me back - one is that I don’t believe they support Apple/Google Pay yet and then alongside that it’s a £3 pm charge account anyway. As I very very rarely use my actual physical debit card anymore to pay £3 a month to not use my Triodos account is a non-starter.
Curious as to what for though. An ethical fintech? Or something else?
For the first I’m not sure they’ve progressed sufficiently to keep bringing customers onboard.
I use Curve to allow Triodos via Google Pay. Works a treat. Don’t mind the £3 charge as I know my money is doing good. If the app isn’t A+, it’s certainly B I think, and certainly enough for basic needs.
New feature: Cubes
It’s just a clone of pots/spaces/pockets. No FSCS protection or interest, only use for this I could think of would be to separate out cashback (would be nice if they could do this automatically).
I think they’ll find those are Rectangles, not Cubes
Cuboids, really.
That would require them to be 3 dimensional. These are just good old rectangles
I wonder if there’s anything coming after February 14th when the cashback offer ends?
No word of anything so far, though early days I suppose.
I do wonder if there’s been a change of management in Algbra as they’ve got on their roadmap ‘Airport Lounge Access’ which, to me, doesn’t seem to fit in with their ‘sustainability’ ethos.
In the last 12 months I think the only developments with Algbra has been (finally) the introduction of Apple/Google Pay (which should’ve been there at launch really - but not sure if Apple/Google have strict rules on letting businesses join Apple/Google Pay to prove they’re suitability first), and the cash back offer (which is definitely a ‘loss-leader’ to Algbra as they try and get more customers). Oh - and Cubes - which are not really that useful at the moment until they introduce features like - actual interest on them so you can use them as a savings account, round-up option for spending into the cube, being able to pay bills directly from them with a Direct Debit and, most crazily that they didn’t launch with this being able to link a virtual card (which they already offer) to a cube so cubes are definitely ‘half-baked’.
I’m really not sure about the long term viability of Algbra. There’s been things on their roadmap which does go with their USP - ethical rewards and ethical investments, but they’ve been there since launch and don’t seem to have developed much (and I’m saying this as someone who uses Starling as their main bank so I’m very used to Fintech promises taking a long time to be delivered!).
I probably need to ‘bite the bullet’ and jump over to Triodos if I want to get serious about ethical banking and investments but there’s just a few niggles that stop me - the monthly charge for starters and the lack of Apple/Google pay. I’ve also heard for a ‘mobile app’ current account, their mobile app isn’t actually that good…
