What a great response! Thanks for the large amount of detail.
For me personally itās a bad fit, but I am very glad I know that now rather after the fact with my data in a third partyās hands. If I were you, I would give all users the same knowledge very very clearly up-front so that they can make an informed decision. As you will have seen from the interaction on here some people care a lot and some people care naught. But for those who do care it will destroy their trust in you if they click the button and then later find out that their card transaction data was sent to a third party.
So hypothetically if I sign up to Cashback, but I do not select any merchants - no data is going to any aggregator in this process?
Do you (/will you) work with multiple aggregators?
In the example above, if Iāve previously accepted an offer from Merchant A, that gives Aggregator Z access to my anonymised data, and Aggregator Z can then use that data to make pitches to Merchant B?
But neither merchant A or B have access to the data themselves, just the Aggregator?
If Monzo takes a percentage (we assume), why are you capping the cash back at Ā£20/month? That (for me at least) would just encourage me to put anything that would take me over Ā£20 elsewhere (eg Amex).
Will that limit be removed when Monzo is no longer funding the cash back directly?
I think itās very likely this is because Monzo is paying the cashback at the moment, as stated several times throughout this thread.
150 * 20 = 3000
150 - number of people Monzo said would be allowed to sign up for early access
20 - the payment cap
3000 - must therefore be the amount set aside (from marketing budget?) to cover the trial
Though I note you realise this, and I am perhaps being too literal with my response. But certainly, as far as the current trial goesā¦
Monzo are not actually taking anything at the moment. Thatās the important bit, I would say. One would suspect that as well as getting data from users on how the system works, theyāre also getting data they can take to aggregators to say āThis is why you should strike a deal with usā.
Ultimately, though, the last question is a fair question:
Properly funded by aggregators, one would hope thereās no hard limit. Though, I do wonder if there will be some kind of soft limit to prevent people gaming the system and absolutely rinsing the cashback (Iām thinking here of some of the stuff that went on with Curve, for example).
Q on refunds, from the Tās and Cās it says this:
Where a transaction is reversed, refunded or cancelled you wonāt earn cashback. If weāve already paid you the cashback, weāll recover it from your Cashback Pot or current account.
How does this work practically?
Currently with the Ā£20 limit, lets say I have over a few transactions I spend Ā£285 at Waitrose, getting my 7% / Ā£20 cashback.
The next purchase would have no cashback - as I hit the Ā£20.
If I partially return some of that shopping (from the order that didnāt pay cashback) - how does that track?
Works very well for me so far, albeit Iāve only spent at ASOS
Spent using my virtual card linked to my Curve card and it was super easy, nice flow as well as being instantly available for withdrawal - all in all, a great feature in my opinion!
Will be trying it at other places like Costa and, maybe, a cheeky sausage roll too over the weekend
Personally, I wouldnāt like anything which leads to individual cashback deposits showing up in the main account feed after every cashback transaction (which I assume you would need to do in order for those individual cashback deposits to show up as row entries in the main account export). I think this would lead to clutter and I prefer the approach you have already taken - cashback accumulating in a pot which can then be withdrawn into main account on demand.
Perhaps another option for those who want cashback data export is to provide an export option for the cashback pot itself seperate from the main account export.
I suppose an option for main account export which does not add additional transactions/rows is to add another column to the export which indicates cashback associated with transactions.
Thank you very much Monzo and @iankent for the data sharing clarifications. They are very welcome and indeed not only make the data sharing picture a lot clearer, they provide peace of mind that you are treating data protection more seriously than many others.
Based on that, I was happy to re-enable my cashback, and tried it for the first time at my local Spar. However, I donāt have any indication that any cashback was awarded.
The Spar does indeed come up as āSparā in the transaction list (actually āSpar Newcastle Roadā is the full merchant name shown), but the icon/logo shown is a petrol pump emoji. Is there an issue with Spars that have petrol stations attached not being part of the cashback perhaps? Or maybe our Spars here in NI donāt register as the Spars youāve included in the cashback list?
:
