Part of the feedback would be to find out how many people did ignore the option. Rather than optimising a feature for those who really want it it is important to find out if it is really something that people want at all, and what the boundaries are for people who are interested but reluctant for some reason, etc.
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Why is random selection over stratified sampling?
Looks like stratified random sampling to me.
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So to those of you obsessing over 1% as opposed to 1.5% that’s £10 or £15 interest a YEAR per £1000. So if you have £5000 savings you ‘lose’ £25 a YEAR by using Monzo. Personally I am prepared for some risk (I wouldn’t recommend this to others) and my excess savings earn about 3% and also require 24hrs to access. I still would be happy to keep up to a couple of thousand as ‘rainy day’ savings with full protection via Monzo. The £5 to £15 ‘loss of interest’ a YEAR is outweighed by the Monzo budgeting that saves me spending far more on coffee in a MONTH!
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I think what a lot of us weren’t so keen on, was the lower rate, combined with the fact it’s not instant access. Plus the £1000 minimum is a lot, and will be very hard for some people.
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I agree getting to £1000 is hard as even getting to £100 can be hard. I just wanted to point out that the total amount of interest earnt is not going to be much and one of the benefits of using Monzo is the budgeting & Pots to enable saving which probably ‘save’ you far more a month than you will gain in interest a year. I see 24hrs wait as a non issue, just keep some cash in an ordinary ‘emergency’ pot to tide you over those 24hrs.
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Whilst there have been some comments about the interest rate being low, I don’t think anyone really expected it to be much higher than it is.
As people have repeatedly said (myself included), the difference between a market leading 1.5% and Monzo’s 1% is pretty small for most of us. A few pounds per year.
But Monzo has always been about ease of use, visibility of your funds, and not complicating things with various different different means to hold your money.
If you have to think about keeping some “emergency cash” because Monzo’s “easy access” savings Pot is anything but “easy access”, then they are clearly not doing something right (especially when there are other products available on the market which do a much better job of giving you access to your funds straight away).
It wouldn’t surprise me if they have had to expand the test to another 12,000 due to the small take up of the offering.
This forum allows Monzo customers a unique opportunity to feedback their thoughts and opinions on various features. It shouldn’t be seen as a negative, to offer feedback that isn’t “Yay, Monzo is amazing”.
It’ll benefit every Monzo customer if we are honest about what they release.
If HSBC or TSB (or dare I say, Starling), released a savings account (after quite a long wait, and massive customer demand), that provided 1% interest with a “next working day” time frame for releasing the funds, this forum would go into meltdown, and I think everyone would understand why.
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If that product was being provided by another company via an integration? I doubt it.
So we are supposed to be grateful with an “integration” which offers a worse product in nearly every way than many other products out there?
What is the benefit of this integration, other than being able to see it within the one app?
If you are happy with mediocre, that’s fine - It just doesn’t seem very “Monzo”, and the feedback seems to suggest many people think the same.
Edit - To clarify, I’m not hating on Monzo. I appreciate its version 1, of what is to potentially be many more versions and improvements.
But if we sit back and say, “job well done”, what incentive is there for Monzo to improve?
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I don’t think anyone is supposed to be grateful (or otherwise).
For me, this is the first release of a deep integration, the type which will hopefully provide lots of learning and the ability to move further and faster with other marketplace offers. This is the interesting point, I think - not the details of this particular account.
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Of course - I was responding to the reply.
It’s just a little disappointing when there are so many people who are quick to offer “That’s amazing” feedback, yet don’t say a word when the feedback is going to be negative.
Like I said, negative feedback will only make the product better for everyone - Providing it’s constructive of course. We have the potential to shape the future of the product, and it’ll benefit every single Monzo customer.
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I think we’re a long, long, long way off that with everything else that is currently on their ‘to-do’ list, so for me that isn’t a positive of this feature.
I personally would have liked them to focus on the other stuff instead of creating what seems like a rushed feature that relies on a 3rd party. Especially one that isn’t at all competitive in the current marketplace. If they’d have waited and used more of their resources they could have made this more seamless and possibly without without the need to rely on another company 
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I think @nickh has it right, personally. The whole thing just feels quite un-Monzo.
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If Monzo is to make a success of integrations, they should be transparent to the user IMO, and all have consistent behaviour and rules. So this one really sets the standards others will meet. Otherwise if the friction is high, people will just look elsewhere.
I will be interested to see how this develops and I’ll probably try it out when it launches, but if it’s not instant access I personally would save in separate accounts (for example in an ISA). That’s fine though - this sort of experiment (and the last one with the marketplace) are how they learn what people want.
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I agree, but I think we’re probably at cross purposes as to what the product is.
My view is that the product is (or at least should be) the integration. So feedback on how tightly integrated it is, how easy to use it is etc is gold dust. I don’t think the details of the actual Investec account are all that important, although they have to be attractive enough to test the concept properly.
If what I think you’re saying is that this is Monzo’s one and only savings offer, then you’re absolutely correct - let’s judge on the details of the account. But I hope it’s not.
The point I’m making is that we should think of this like the first app in your app store of choice. The details and rate are a matter for Investec. And it won’t be the only savings account that will ever be available.
(if I’m wrong I’ll be very disappointed 
)
Thought: maybe the integration is too deep? 
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I can’t see why I’d ever need access to my savings in under a day. For emergencies I’d use a credit card or the bit of extra I’d keep in my current account.
Everyone does money differently though, think that’s the main thing this thread shows
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Quick poll:
- I’d like one, competitive, savings account available through Monzo.
- I’d like to pick from a marketplace of suppliers
0 voters
Aha, I see what you are saying here.
From what I’ve seen, the “integration” looks slick, very slick. If this was an “integration” test, I’d give them 5 stars (out of 5, for anyone wondering 
).
My only concern with that is, it’s taken a long time to deliver a sub standard product. So whilst the eventual “integration” might be good, the negotiations have been poor (so it would seem).
If every integration is as slick as this one, with a below average product, I don’t see anyone being happy.
To be honest, the only thing stopping this current integration from being a winner is the time delay on funds - I’m genuinely surprised this is here, and Monzo didn’t find a way around it before releasing it.
5 Stars for integration.
1 Star for the product.
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I can’t speak for Monzo, but if we assume that they are aiming for multiple integrations, then I imagine the first one or two are going to be difficult - both commercially and technically. While I imagine they will want to enforce standards they will likely need to make some compromises to get some momentum going.
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It is interesting isn’t it how differently people make these decisions and what they base it on (I’m reminded of Tom saying these things are very emotional, and I think I agree - people choose banks/accounts based on feelings and intuition more than they care to admit).
Re access, I have different categories of saving in my head:
Very long term savings go into a pension, where the access terms are pretty harsh - can’t withdraw for decades!
Long term savings go somewhere tax free with a return (definitely not cash at present, except in the short term). So used to go to a Cash ISA when rates were above inflation, but nowadays in a S&S ISA (though much is in cash for now as the market has just peaked IMO). Instant access doesn’t matter much, a few days is fine.
Short term savings are held in cash, the return doesn’t matter as much, and instant access matters a lot more as I’d want to be able to shift the cash at short notice. A day’s notice is an annoyance and not something I’d put up with for a few pounds a year.
Still will be interesting to see when they get more products on board how this works out. I do hope they’re also planning to reconsider the focus of the app a bit as this marketplace is added. It feels to me like the app needs to have a global feed showing all activity, and promote accounts (or pots as they still call them) to the full status of the bank account, so that you can see each one under an Accounts tab. The ‘Account’ tab doesn’t make much sense to me at present and I dislike the global switcher idea for joint accounts. The design needs to take into account the fundamental changes to the product as this evolves. I’d like to see the transaction feed being a global one which can show activity across all accounts - I think that’d really cool and would help them give good visibility about where money is going and when it actually leaves (as opposed to being saved to a given saving option). Long term I’d love to see things like SIPP products in the marketplace, and proper signalling to users about how on track they are for long term saving goals within those sub-accounts. Month to month saving is all very well and congratulations for having money left at the end of the month are nice, but longer term goals are more important and can benefit both customers and Monzo - their financial education aspirations could be well served by this as well as their bottom line.
Sure, this sounds reasonable, and I only give feedback as I think it is useful for Monzo to hear the thought process of people judging their product. Often there are minor tweaks they can make which improve perception a lot, even if it is just clearer communication on terms, or a switch in focus. As one example I think the CASS feedback helped improve it by focussing on the full switch service (which is a much better experience for customers).
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