agree!
I’ve seen a lot and been penalised for tying to use the system for my / their gain the laws state you can’t use it to gain money and avoid charges where you should pay them banks have blocked me for that reason and they call it cash recycling so avoid it at all cost as they say or you’ll end up no banking services at all as banks will not take you on
Cash recycling is where you put money in one account and move it to another account and you gain from the privilege of just moving money about and avoiding due fees and gaining benefits of no doing it differently
My issue is not so much with the banks themselves - It was more directed at some of the people on the forum.
Is the system broken? It’s certainly not optimal, but you could say the same for most things (I’m looking at you especially child benefit…).
I like to play the game of “replace Monzo with HSBC”, and guess what the result will be.
“HSBC to introduce fees for cash deposits” - What do you think the reaction would be like here?
I should add - Fee or no fee, it doesn’t affect me directly, and I don’t pretend to understand the impact on those it might.
Until Monzo branches out into other areas (this fabled Money Hub we’ve heard about), it’s impossible to judge them, because they are doing the same thing that every other bank does, but has to charge for some of the services that other banks provide for free.
They make money through lending (OD’s and loans - Neither of which are especially cheap), and then a bit through the BoE and other bits and pieces (in the same way that other banks make money).
Would we class Monzo as “praying on the poor”, like people seem to want to class the legacy banks?
Why are Starling going to provide it for free (if the reports are to be believed), with much higher limits? Better negotiation? More lines of revenue so they can subsidise this feature? Better planning ahead (with the new card roll out that was widely panned by this forum at the time, but was necessary to include the new chip?)
My point is, people treat it like some historic football rivalry - Monzo vs the world, and that tends to skew the general opinion.
I’m a Monzo customer because I like the app, the CS was very good, and I like to try new products out - I’ve stayed a customer because they still fulfil my very small current account banking needs.
If paying a monthly fee brought better benefits, and “levelled” the playing field - I’d have no problem. But they’d have to include a free tier for those who literally had no money (but then, we are kinda in the same position we are in now aren’t we?)
In my circumstance, I’d probably use the free tier as I put all my spend through credit cards, and then pay it off at the end of the month - I also have an Amex that I pay annually for, but feel the particular benefits are worth it to me and my family.
That’s a bit of a ramble, and possibly belongs in your other thread 
, but I hope(?) some of what I said made sense!
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You can’t compare a bank taking physical deposits in branches they own to a bank taking physical deposits through a partnership arrangement with another organisation. That’s a whole layer which simply isn’t there for HSBC.
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Perhaps - But other fintechs are somehow getting around the fees, or have bigger limits etc.
It was a point to highlight some of the double standards - But completely appreciate it’s not like for like.
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You most certainly can.
They use post office too!
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This is where I disagree strongly. Monzo is a bank. The most basic purpose of a bank is to take deposits, store money and then allow you withdraw it.
As a customer, the business model that Monzo choose to pursue doesn’t affect my expectations of whether it can offer the most basic services (for free). Of course providing services costs money, but some things are just table stakes.
The point about being fair also doesn’t really ring true as they’re apparently happy to subsidise some services where it suits them, or just let other banks subsidise them.
I’ve made the point before but you don’t see legacy banks charging for online services because they have a whole branch network which you can use.
None of this actually affects me personally. I really like using Monzo but I also don’t think they just deserve a pass on these sorts of things, mostly because they really try to sell themselves on how “special” they are.
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I would argue that Monzo are becoming more and more like a legacy bank in they way they do things, as someone previously mentioned they are becoming the ryanair of banking.
Not simple at all and a million different fees and limits you have to remember.
Monzo are cutting corners and rushing implementations in all over the shop whereas Starling seem to be producing a more polished product these days.
Look at chat for instance, they way that was rushed in to “production” was terrible
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These arguments are so circular.
It’s clear with this thread people have difference of opinions. I think we should all accept that some people are happy, and some not, and not try to change each other’s opinions.
Personally, I’m not too happy with a new charge, but I know it won’t affect me too much either.
Monzo have got a lot of catching up to do, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I accept there might be shortcomings for some time, with the hope that things will change. They’ve given reasons why they’ve implemented limitations and they’ve never given me a reason to believe they’re dishonest.
It’s in Monzo’s interest to make everyone happy, and I believe over time they will do that.
I think everyone should air their opinions whether they’re happy or not. But after a few back and forwards between sides trying to sway people’s minds, I think everyone should agree to disagree and move on with this one.
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Can i ask is the information out there around if the post office method is cheaper than pay point or vice versa?
If it was cheaper for post office but required a chip update why not offer a new metal card with the new chip at a premium? I know alot of people have asked for this and with a one-off fee it offsets the cost
Because arranging for manufacturing and distrubution via a metal card producer would be costly and slow, blocking a feature many people have asked for and say is essential on a one a handful of people have said would be a ‘nice to have’?
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Again its an assumption that it will be slow, its just a suggestion.
If post office is a better all round and possibly cheaper solution (going by other banks models) then surely they could use the paypoint way as a stopgap until the other solution is possible?
I understand monzo have made their choice on this, im just adding in an idea to the rest of the community to gauge interest.
At the point cash is being put in a bank it’s already been laundered
Exactly 
This is one reason why it is so hard to spot patterns that related to cash based criminal activity, the source is less known.
Less known your judged a criminal cause it’s not a pay check or benefit payment and cash is like suspect even if the source is legal.
I get money off my mum and that’s legal but banks etc say cash is suspect and not legal and your just causing issues for the poor in society
Try explain to the jobcentre that the cash you get is not new income etc etc and try say to the banks your not a fraudster it’s non starter they always have upper hand and you get no say
There’s no law to say you can’t hold an account in Ireland for example but the government will think that is tax evasion when it’s not cause you earn your money in the UK it is legal
Do you think every person who deal in cash is a criminal stealing it or getting it from drugs or laundering it there’s plenty older people who think technology is ok for dealing with your account but deal with cash on a regular basis my mum always goes to the cash machine every Thursday gets money out and uses it a lot and pays coins in to the bank she will never change her way. I’ve seen myself forced to do cash at times and I have to pay cash in too a lot but try pay by card where possible
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No But there is greater risk exposure with accepting larger amounts of cash deposits that there is now when they do not. I can understand why they would want to initially keep these deposit thresholds low, if it is indeed until they build up their internal systems. So for now the product would be useful to more people than the day before it was released, and in the future, if deposit limits are increased/ an additional method is release, it becomes more useful again for even more people 
I don’t know how Starling have built their implementation or what agreement they have with the Post Office but when we were looking into this it was going to be necessary to get a new chip profile before we could do this 
If Starling have managed to work out with the Post Office a way to do this without replacing a load of plastic that’s awesome! 
With regards to the £1 fee; I’m not a big fan of it either. Not because it’s a huge sum of money but because we set out to make our product clean and simple and adding in fees and charges feels very much against the way we want to go.
However, it does cost us money to provide this service (after all, handling cash is expensive) and those who have been on the forum may remember the ATM fee debates… It was said that we shouldn’t have been nice and launched something assuming people weren’t going to take advantage of it in a way that became unsustainable (which is totally fair). So, instead we’re making sure to cover the costs from the very beginning this time round so that we can analyse how people use the account and make changes to hopefully bring down or remove the charge in time.
It seems like you can’t win either way though!
As has been pointed out nothing is actually free and it has to be paid for somehow. There is loads of exciting stuff we want to build but we can’t do that if we aren’t here to build it so we need to be careful with the pennies, as every business does. That doesn’t mean we should sacrifice customer experience and we need to make sure that we do our best to tread that line carefully 
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Go the way Sweden is ban cash from most places then it has to be electronic but then the downside to that is excludes people from spending money in many places it’s more to go cashless and prove where funds come from. I know limits shouldn’t be too low and discriminate straight a way but to see a limit of say £1000 cash every 30 days would work cause I save in building society and one time I got £750 back in one go and had it all in cash I paid it straight in to the bank but that’s not criminal money as it was saved up over a long period of time
I always say don’t restrict current accounts to certain in society though I see Barclays block me from the bank accounts cause they think I’m fraud risk where they get that from I don’t know so black mark cause I’m just savvy in how I do things but that alarms banks they don’t want to see people changing
You have a right to a basic current account so you can pay your income in to and to pay your bills but to see banks block some in society altogether means people will be forced to pay extra to do things and they could loose out on certain things in life cause you need bank account to gain certain things like phone line at home and a house to live in