This piece is my opinion and personal experiences only and should not be taken in any other way than this. This is only meant for summing up my experiences with Monzo from the past 3 years of banking with them and highlighting a few features that were incredibly helpful and those that really really need work.
Tl’dr – read it….or don’t 
New digital age 
When I first joined Monzo back in February 2019, I had never heard of it before. I don’t really find this surprising though as when I researched what it actually was I came away with the impression it was quite London centric (I think it still is). It took a while for the Monzo name to reach me all the way north in Scotland’s Capital. What I wasn’t prepared for was when I hit that install button in the Google Play Store, and how instantly smitten I would become with a bank, A bank!
Before the 2.0 refreshed coat of paint the app would eventually get about a year after I joined, the app had this allure to it. Everything I needed in a banking app was clearly and colourfully presented to me. On occasion, without really a need, I found that I would just open the app look around. This habit would eventually lead me to come extremely obsessed about were my money was going, what was coming in and save more money than I thought possible.
A thing that blew my mind, and instantly got me hooked to Monzo, was the fact it was digital only. How could an entire bank fit on my phone? I remembered asking myself. What about bank branches? What if I have cash to deposit? What about speaking to someone about an issue? And the one I remember most as it induced shear dread was cheque depositing, That moment I dropped a manila envelope containing the largest cheque I had in my life, £3000, down a shoot at my local post Office was a moment filled with anxiety and a strange hint of excitement. A bank that was set up around the idea of cashless. A new world had just opened up for me.
Digital Customer Experience
I always found there something inconvenient about having to go out your way and reorganise your schedule whenever the need arose to pop into your bank branch. It was something I secretly loathed but resigned myself to and accepted it as part of banking and finance in Britain. There was no way someone could come up with a better way to speak to a bank clerk or customer service rep about whatever mundane card issue I had at the time. It never occurred to me to talk to one via a text-like messaging feature!
The experience I found with customer service initially was fast, responsive and polite! There wasn’t an issue they couldn’t resolve or without passing me over directly to their specialist who could all within a very short amount of time. Unfortunately, this experience has since, in every meaningful way, degraded and has become subpar to the very banks Monzo was to challenge. This has only gotten worse with time, and culminated with, for me , a Google Pay issue that caused me to be bounced between no less than a dozen “specialists” over a week, with no real solution. Disappointing.
Budget tools, Categories… and Trends! 
At the point of my Monzo discovery, I could barely give you an explanation on what budgeting is. Never heard of it. My Bank of Scotland account was more like a sieve, Money leaving my account in every uneducable way. Worse, I had no idea what my spending habits were until Monzo. Monzo, has great tools, built around your spending so you can not only get a detailed description on what you spent money on but where, when and even who with, with bill splitting!
However, Budget categories and the newly released trends that really let you see a full, detailed picture of the amount of money spent during a week or month. This has revolutionised my finances, I now know where my money goes, on what and how much of my total spending is on one category or another. This has let me figure out where to cut back and save, saving me from the stress and anxiety seeing my money dwindle down until that dreadful orange bank balance called overdraft.
Connected accounts, Plus and Premium 
Over the last year, I have been a Plus member, a Premium member ( The amount of wipes I went through to keep that card clean will never be mentioned ) and back to Plus member again, and what I have found is connected accounts are far far more powerful than I think I have seen anyone else mention. The idea of seeing how much I have in total between all my bank accounts and seeing my credit card spending integrated (somewhat) into Monzo’s already excellent budgeting tools has been incredible. My entire financial life, easily accessible in one secure, simple app. This elevated for me the idea of not just budgeting in my Monzo account but taking the habits and obsession Monzo gave me to my credit card, my HSBC account etc. Further improving my situation.
Make connected accounts a basic feature.
These are just a small sample of the things I like and dislike about Monzo. Its fast, easy to use, quirky, fun, innovative, the staff are friendly and an amazing community around about it all that further support the bank to succeed and that’s what this is about: For Monzo to succeed.
But for me, Monzo hasn’t been as innovative, and exiting as it used to be, For the same reasons why Monzo has to become more serious to grow, I am leaving to bank elsewhere.
This was a very peculiar read.