As in UK we all have another main account(and Monzo as backup) and almost all are free of charge to withdraw, then make the fee only within the UK and free outside.
Surely the fairest and most transparent option is to pass on the exact charge to the Monzo user each time? The problem with a percentage is that there is no guarantee that it won’t change in future.
Even in UK there is still very large number of retailers/shops that will surcharge you for paying by card or below some limit. I.E its not common in EU countries like Poland buy in UK Im still forced to use ATM by retailer/shop.
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But the user won’t know the fee before using the ATM, how is that fair?
Revolut have something similar to option three right, 2% above £200 a month. Does anyone know how people get on with that?
BTW surveys/votings should be regarding ADDING features, not REMOVING them.
I would propose that Monzo starts a Premium account akin to Revolut’s but, unlike Revolut, make this free to anyone who pays their salary into their Monzo account. This way, Monzo can tempt those who have the card purely for international travel/payments to use the card for all transactions. However, I would personally only do this if Monzo sticks with the no-caps approach… or at least rolls the cap up to an annual amount so that users can cover a couple of trips abroad each year.
I left for that reason from Revolut because it used to be >double that
FWIW, I moved to Monzo purely for the reason Revolut brought in that cap.
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I see your point and that could actually work but not sure how happy monzo would be still bearing the costs of free transactions abroad as from my understanding is quite high for them
With two Monzos and two Revoluts I might be able to go through holidays without problematic ATM limits.
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No, surveys are for getting people’s viewpoints.
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usually yes, but not for new companys trying to sell us their new product. It just dont look nice. Would expect removing features after 10-15 years on market, not earlier.
My view is that people incurring any cost should pay for it, otherwise there is a massive disincentive to other members of the group who do not travel. i.e. if I don’t travel abroad then there must be an opportunity cost to me of not getting other incentives because I am subsidising a small minority of customers who withdraw cash abroad.
Customers should be discouraged from withdrawing cash abroad (take it with you, I do {another product opportunity for you here}) because cards can be used abroad with complete freedom now - so why do you need (much) cash anyway? Pay for the little you take out.
I have other suggestions though:-
A) pass on charges at cost - make customers aware they will pay, I know I will pay if I use my Lloyds card abroad. If the card is used in the USA consumers know they will be charged $5 by the bank, so why not the charges too? From your stats, the USA seems to be cheaper, so I don’t understand the pricing options you have - that assumes the customer knows they are paying $105 to withdraw $100
B) it’s a chip and pin stored value card. (So not for the current account here, but you have a USP with the SV card). Do withdrawal fees apply for local currencies? If not, why not store € or $ on the card from the app and withdraw local currency?
C) have a separate “overseas / travel” service that bundles other useful products (e.g. data, travel insurance, car breakdown, hotel payment, car rental, whatever) and absorb the costs within that.
I have two suggestions for option 4.
The first one is that Monzo launches something like a premium account which still offers all the features the Monzo card does now with cash withdrawals free of charge everywhere in the world.
The second suggestion is that Monzo introduces a points system which will solve the imbalance of 13% of users causing over 80% of cost. Users could earn the points by using the card in the UK. The points will then determine how much cash you can withdraw free of charge abroad. Once a user has used all their points, Monzo could charge 2% for every foreign country.
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£200 limit wouldn’t be ideal for me. I visit the USA quite frequently and find it’s a very cash centric place. Losing £15 on a £500 withdrawal seems quite a high amount
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New option.
Tiered memberships according to UK monthly usage - the more you use the card in the UK, the less you get charged for withdrawals abroad. Has the extra benefit of encouraging longer-term usage and converting people to use it full-time.
Surely the long term goal of Monzo is to operate as a full bank, and therefore make money from lending fees (which can subsidize the offshore withdrawal fees)!
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But they’re not abusing it: simply take advantage of the facilities provide. This is what I love about Monzo. There’s no sense of bank and customer constantly trying to outwit the other,
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The best model is the one in option 3 however I would suggest the following:
In order to compensate the majority that in the majority of places have no need whatsoever to withdraw more than 200 pounds per month as everything can be paid using the card why not accumulate the remainder of the 200 pounds in one given month to be used after (assume that I did a cash withdrawal of 100 pounds in September and came back to the UK, therefore, for October, if I travel abroad I would have 300 pounds as a cap), all of it perfectly and transparently shown in some sort of mini dashboard on the expenditure screen (Card Balance, Spent today, Foreign Cap - or whatever you wanna call it)
From a development perspective, it wouldn’t be very difficult to achieve this and I think it would compensate the majority, plus it would also provide stimulus to a change of behaviour for all of those that “abuse” the current gratuity of the system.
With all due respect, I see this as an old school behaviour here in the UK and also from where I’m from, always carrying loads of money when going on holiday which is something that you could understand 10 years ago because of how much banks usually charge in conversion fees and/or ATM withdrawals but that is not justifiable nowadays in my opinion.
Also, some users mentioned that in Germany and Netherlands some places don’t accept card so you need to withdraw money - I find it hard to believe that this happens in ALL places within these countries, and if that is the case you just accept the situation and do it, or leave and go somewhere else(in case you didn’t actually eat/consumed anything yet). Next time you try to check at the door for the usual stickers or ask if they accept card payments before you actually go for it - I always do that.
that’s my 2 cents
Um. What it looks like is that 
need to stem the flow because the product is being used in a way that wasn’t originally envisioned and is costing them through the nose.
Seems entirely fair of them and hey, they are even consulting the community about it!
If you don’t like it, you don’t have to continue using it.
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