Analysing the Costs of the ATM Fees Options

So I’ve posted this in the ATM Fees abroad topic but It’s gonna keep moving up the page so I thought I’d post it here, Admins feel free to lock it as comments should be left on that page but I thought it might be useful to try and justify monzos position which compares very favourably all-round compared to any of the other competitors.

First of all, assuming a monthly spend of X amount in £ here is how much you’d spend with each of the three options:

MonzoEuropeanV1

MonzoWorldV1

Now this is where it gets slightly more complex because some assumptions have to be made about the number of withdrawals (many cards impose a per-withdrawal cost). So I’m going to assume that there is a maximum cash withdrawal for each card of £200 per time so for example withdrawing £900 worth of currency would take 5 withdrawals.

For the comparison I’m going to compare:

  • Post Office Currency Card

  • Metro Bank Current Account

  • Revolut

  • FairFX

Any suggestions for other cards to add in are welcome…

So here are the results:

MonzoWorldV2

MonzoEuropeanV2

Summary: All three options compare reasonably favourably if you are looking at these pure numbers based on my limited example. Though some appear to be cheaper in certain cases, this is based on a simple model with few large withdrawals (which is the real kicker for most other banks that have a per withdrawal fee) but here is the good bit about monzo…

  • Individual Withdrawals: All of the other cards (except revolut) penalise you for making withdrawals with a per transaction fee, Monzo doesn’t do this so it doesn’t matter if you withdraw £20 or £200 in local currency so you aren’t left with piles of local currency at the end of the holiday that you are ripped off changing back.
  • Purchases: Monzo offers free purchases everywhere, every other card either charges a percentage “transaction fee” (yes even metro) or places a maximum limit on free transactions (revolut).
  • Loading: Monzo doesn’t charge for loading your card whereas the foreign currency cards typically do for some types of transactions.
  • Conversion Rate: Prepaid cards typically charge their own rate which is the high street rate (not as good as mastercard) or charge a % of the rate on top of the visa/mastercard/amex rate.

To conclude, Monzo is a good all round card and will be if any of the three options are chosen (you’ve just gotta vote for the best model for you). Whilst the other cards may seem to offer better rates, it’s really not the whole story especially if you factor in the use of the mastercard rate, the free purchases everywhere and the free loading of the card as well as fantastic current account.

Basically if monzo are saying they don’t wanna make a profit on these costs and are offering these fees, it’s the best you’re gonna get all-round.

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