AMA with our Chief Product Officer, Fernando 🎉

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

@o99

Why is there so much feature disparity between the Android and iOS version of the apps?

In some cases it’s because we’re trying to maximise around the platforms, others we just need to do a better job at feature parity. But all teams are staffed against both platforms. Any particular area you’d like us to focus on?

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

Thank you, appreciate the feedback. Let me look deeper into the external savings angle. But in general we are very keen to use the full power of open banking and the like to deliver on the financial control centre proposition.

We’re already leveraging some open access type capabilities to show your mortgage in Monzo, as well as the ability to pay it via Monzo, for example. So yes, these capabilities will be important if we want to help you bring all your financial life to Monzo. This is something we’ll continue evolving over the next year.

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

@JIMMWX

This really intrigued me that you split teams either by metrics or features. How do you find this works if they start in one route and then move to another?

yep so the only problem is when a team is “stuck” trying to move a metric that’s too big for them. So we need to spot those and make sure we tweak either the team or scope accordingly.

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

Thanks Peter and everyone for your questions – it’s been interesting to talk, and this community isn’t something I take for granted

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

I hope you all enjoyed your Easters, am going through a few more questions now!

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

Thanks!

Both Messi and Emi “Dibu” Martinez are national heroes in Argentina so guess that puts me in the love bucket. We were not expecting to win (Brazil, England, and France were the favourites going in for us) so that made it even more special. Celebrations were wild!

[Alexxxxx (>50 categories pls)]

@fernandofanton

Any particular area you’d like us to focus on?

Jumping in here to flag the parity wiki - Android-iOS Parity Wiki

In terms of particular areas (from an iOS perspective) the inability to set a subscription to be “every X days/weeks/months/years” actively hampers my ability to properly and factually record some of my payments, and the inability to edit scheduled pot transfers is extremely frustrating.

[Ordog]

+1 for OS parity

From the other side as an Android user. The advanced search iOS have irks me every time I need to try and find a transaction. We can only search on name.

[berth (Bert)]

Saw some last questions can get an answer - forgive me for bumping this one to try and get it added to the list!

How do you manage setting priorities?
Bonus: how do you balance new features and maintenance / updates of existing ones?

What is the current flow for a new feature in Monzo to be released? (If not too confidential)

How much do you expect Monzo to change in other regions like the EU?

[Paulw (Paul)]

Thanks. Paying your mortgage sounds interesting. With savings, are you able to give any insight as to how Monzo might tackle that given lack of open banking for savings products?

[duncang (Duncan)]

@fernandofanton

The experience isn’t where I want it to be for a product that’s so important – and making this better is a top priority right now. The product functionality, availability and experience all need to be better, so rest assured we have teams actively working to do this and unlock the full potential of joint accounts.

Wonderful to hear this. I’d like to point out that it’s possible to ship some of the most needed parts of this - custom categories and virtual cards - without needing to deal with lots of legal changes; they’re just technical features. And apparently they have some of them in the US already!

I think you’re bang-on about re-orienting towards a “Financial Control Center” goal; it’s right thing to do with the app to provide a huge amount of extra value. How do you envision this working, roughly? What are the highest-level items that people should be able to see at a glance? (net worth? total debt? discretionary/mandatory spending?)

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

We don’t have a bias, so you’ll see more occasions where we do both, like we now do with savings. Third party is a must since we can’t do everything ourselves. But when it makes sense, we’ll provide our own solution as well.

I get the platform point and it’s correct, the only difference is that we don’t want to present users with bad options. That’s different to other platforms that present all the options out there (good or bad). In our case, we’d only bring third party players we believe provide a great experience.

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

Great point. We’ve actually been ‘cross-pollinating’ more and more between the UK and the US. Basically working with the US team to bring many things over (and the other way around). We’ll be bringing some improvements to the UK onboarding experience which were first developed by the US team, for example.

I’ll add this one to the list!

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

@gt94sss2

Frequently, customers are told to use another banking provider for these features which can’t be what you really want?

Nope, it’s not! We’re actively working on cheque imaging specifically as well as adding more options for cash deposits.

I’ll ask the Payments team to come on here soon to share more. Let me know if there’s anything else you’d be interested to hear about from them.

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

@Midzone

I wonder if Monzo have looked into offering Cashback even if tied to the Plus or Premium accounts?

Yes, we’re evaluating rewards in general, including cashback options. We’re talking to partners and looking at ways to reward loyalty.

But whatever we do we’d love to avoid gimmicky options, like only having cashback for a fixed period of time as an acquisition tool. Instead, we’re thinking about how we could offer true sustainable/ongoing value for you. Grocery definitely comes up as a vertical. Would love to know what you’d find valuable?

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

So priorities are set quarterly and “themes’’ are set annually or bi-annually. We obviously keep things agile and communicate among ourselves to fine tune as we go.

We generally first do a demo internally, then we test it internally, later it goes to Labs (so you folks can play with them!), then a small group of users, and then a rolling update. Oh and we try to launch on Android and iOS concurrently as much as possible.

[caribo]

@fernandofanton

Would love to know what you’d find valuable?

Free Gregg’s sausage rolls, obviously!

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

Yep that’s correct. I said earlier we’re starting to try some things in the US first that will later come to the UK, including the ones you mentioned. It’s working well and it’s the same codebase. It’s cool because we can be a bit bolder trying things out in the USA.

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

noted!

[fernandofanton (Fernando)]

Hey everyone, I think these are all the questions I’m going to be able to get to for now!

Thanks so much for all your questions and feedback, it’s been super fun and insightful. I really appreciate you taking so much time to chat with me.

I’m still learning/thinking about the best ways to engage with the community in what we’re working on and what’s coming up. I want us to share more of the new things we’re working on, the way we’ve been doing with the app evolution work and the new home tab, for example.

I’ve also been thinking about how we bring back a kind of transparent roadmap and what that looks like. It could be the standard upcoming products and features we’re working on. Or maybe we share the biggest problems and user needs we’re thinking about solving? Let me know your thoughts.

Finally, thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to vote in the British Bank Awards. Voting closes tonight just before midnight – so I’ll make one last request for you to vote by leaving us a review if you haven’t already

If you haven’t voted because you don’t think we’re the best in these categories yet – I’ve got plenty of feedback from this conversation so we can change that ASAP

Speak soon!