Card Quality

Just received a new card as unfortunately mine snapped in half.

The Quality was absolutely horrendous. I opened the envelope, white paint was smudged into the card and was flaking off. My hands were covered in tiny pieces of white paint just from handling it and the white paint is already starting to peel off the numbers already. It arrived literally 5 mins ago.

I honestly think Monzo needs to change supplier as clearly whatever quality assurance Monzo has put in place is not working.

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Hi James,

Iā€™m so sorry about that. Can you please post a couple of photos in here with the PAN (16 digit number)
covered or blurred out? Iā€™ll then escalate to the team. Could you also let us know which supplier it was (We have multiple) - you can find this information on the back of the card at the top.

Please feel free to freeze it and order another.

I got a new card and it was if too quality not issues looks and fils nice maybe itā€™s a one off

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately I had cleaned my hands and used the time to wipe the card to get rid of the excess paint.

The supplier is TAG systems. Other examples of the card quality are;

Signature box with CVV is skewed and not a proper rectangle with paint bleeding.
On the PAN no. the numbers are showing orange.

Iā€™m not overly fussed as iā€™ve wiped it down and cleaned it up. I just wanted you to know as ā€˜you never get a second chance to make a first impressionā€™, Iā€™ve been with Monzo a long time but for some new customers who might get the same experience itā€™s not putting your best foot forward. Secondly with Monzo Plus being a paid service and launching Q1/Q2, people wonā€™t tolerate a poor card quality that they have have paid for.

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True they wonā€™t

We have taken no chances with New Plus, and the card stock for it has been heavily scrutinised
(Hope this comment wonā€™t come back to bite me in the ass but this is my understanding and based on what Iā€™ve personally seen :shushing_face:)

With the original cards, we have also taken some steps on QA but I think there was existing stock where the chance of this happening was non-zero but there would have been a significant cost in writing them all off.

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New name for paid accounts confirmed

(It wonā€™t really be called New Plus)

(Or will it?)

:thinking::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Which design of card was this, standard Hot Coral, Joint, Investor, or one of our former Plus designs?

Additionally, as Simon requested, could you send us photos with at least the last half of the digits of the card number and the CVC (three numbers on the back) covered/blurred out?

We are raising this with our supplier to work out what happened and how we can fix the root cause of it. I should also say that this is the first weā€™ve heard of this particular issue and are now looking to see how widespread it is.

We work with multiple suppliers and continually spot check for quality, in addition to the supplierā€™s own quality controls. At our scale nowadays, we canā€™t hand-check every single card, so it is inevitable that a very small number of cards out of the tens of thousands ordered every day can have cosmetic issues. However, it sounds like this one is bad enough that it should have been caught during packing and for that, I can only apologise.

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Latte with soy milk for Monzo New Plus Investor

Some good moments in US coffee shops coming up

The only card which was of good quality for me was my Beta card issued by Wirecard. Every debit card since has lost its tipping and my investor card from IDEMIA is a grainy mix of white and washed out coral. My other Monzo friends take the mickey about how poor it is. Id rather save on the plastic than renewā€¦ at least my Apple Pay card looks right :stuck_out_tongue:

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I got a new NatWest one a few weeks ago and it looks like itā€™s come straight out of an inkjet printer thatā€™s running low on ink. Not even any lumpy numbers on itā€¦ in truth I actually nearly flung it out thinking it was a cardboard one trying to sell me a credit card.

Hopefully theyā€™ve improved since I flagged this back in October last year :crossed_fingers:

Sadly not, I ordered a JA new card last month and agree that it is more salmon than hot coral compared to my older sole account card.

If it helps, I got a joint account card last month and it looks better than my personal one and a bright hot coral!

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I guess itā€™s a supplier issue then.

Every now and then there is a surge of card quality complaints and it is always a ā€œsupplier issueā€ or a ā€œbad batch that theyā€™re trying to get rid ofā€.

Iā€™ve never understood how things like this get through quality control. Do the manufacturers not image scan cards for alignment, colour, misprints and so on? All this can be done automatically.

Then what about at Monzos end? When they accept a batch of cards are some not checked or do they come to us straight from the manufacturer?

Iā€™ve had quite a few cards over the four (five!?) years of being onboard. The white paint on the numbers always rubs off within days, within months the card is no longer hot coral but a muted pink.

I have a card from Natwest and their numbers are printed on the card, not raised. This could be a good solution to a difficult problem.

There has been discussion on the raised numbers before: Card numbers rub off

TL;DR something to do with the old fashion card scanning things in Japan.

To be clear my comment was referring solely to the apparent change in colour, not the card quality. I assume that different suppliers have slightly different colours.

Either way it all falls under the same umbrella about quality control.

Back on colour though, I donā€™t see why manufacturers canā€™t all produce the same colour. I can take my car to any bodyshop and they can match the colour perfectly. All they need is the formula to mix it and something to match against?

Unless itā€™s a total different kettle of fish when it comes to cards? :man_shrugging: