Cashback

Making Monzo Sneak Peeks (Archived)
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Something we’ve been exploring in the partnerships team over the last few weeks is how cashback could work on Monzo.

Everyone digs cashback, and if we can work out a smooth way to reward you for your day to day spending it’d be a big win for both us and our users. I’ve been digging into the design for how this could function, and I’d like to share some of the progress so far.

So to condense the concept down into one very simple, pleasant journey, here’s what I’ve been working towards so far:

You go shopping. You pay, you get your trusty Monzo notification, but something’s new – hang on, what’s this? A couple quid back for your purchase. Unbelievable. You swipe through, you see the cashback right there on the transaction. You tap through to see all of your cashback from the last few days, building up to be paid out at the end of the week. Sweet.

Here’s what that would look like:

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And at the end of the week once that’s been paid out:

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These are still pretty early concepts, but after some exploration, discussion in the team, and research with users, we’re pretty confident of this approach.

One of the main things we noticed was a split in how people preferred cashback rewards – with half after an instant payout of a smaller amount, and half wanting a collection of cash to be paid out after building for some time.

We’ve tried to go for something in the middle, so you still get that instant buzz of reward in the moment via the notification (and on the transaction), but the payout will come in a bigger chunk at the end of the week. It’s worth mentioning however, that a weekly payout is still up in the air – it could well be monthly or some other time period.

Another point to be aware of is that, while we generally use real data and merchants in our designs, I’ve used placeholders to illustrate the time being as it’s still too early to know which merchants would be part of the cashback program. I think we’re confident that we could get a really amazing selection of places though, ones that would reward you both for day-to-day spending and one off affairs.

So, that’s that. As always, please share your thoughts and feedback here! Party on.

Important to note

  1. As said, we have not worked out any details with merchants or providers so far, so can’t say what sort of rates, where this would be offered yet or even if we will be able to offer this at all. :warning:
  2. This will be released on Android and iOS at the same time.
  3. We don’t have a solid timeline of when this would be released, but we’re hopeful it’ll be in the not-too-distant future :wink:
  4. It will be current account only.
153 Likes
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Personally I think it better to build up or go into a pot so we can take it when WE want. I would not want my account statement cluttered with odd little amounts every transaction or every week. That is one of the things I dislike about Fidor bonuses getting multiple per week.

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Lack of cash back is the exact reason I don’t use Monzo for my day to day UK spending. I currently get 0.5% on all UK purchases with my free credit card, so this is a great idea.

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Technically all that’s happening is the merchant is charging you less. ‘cashback’ is smoke and mirrors… so as long as refunds follow the same rules they shouldn’t be an issue.

It’s an interesting idea… makes banking more fun.

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This is very interesting and the scope for this is huge. It need not just be physical retailers but online retailers.

Quidco has seven million members. If each of those is paying a £5 fee annually, then that’s, erm, a lot of money just for being part of a scheme to earn discounts.

If I could do away with Quidco and just use my Monzo CA card for all purchases and not have to use special affiliate hyperlinks then that would be fab. Great to get chasback from merchants you didn’t know you Get Get Mo so cashback from.

TL;DR, Monzo, please totally reinvent affiliate cashback sites so I don’t have to think or register for anything, just make it work brilliantly, thanks.

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Perfect solution
…

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Cashback through Monzo would be great :grin: I’d be happy to receive it in any way, daily, weekly, monthly - cashback appreciated in any form!

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Absolutely, the whole team would like to see this, partly because it ties our two projects of pots and cashback, and also because it would be a really nice way of building savings with zero work. Even if it’s just small chunks of money.

Not included in these screenshots is how your cashback feed item looks like when you tap through to the transaction view. It includes a button to deposit that money into a pot, and while this is currently manual I think a future version should be automatic.

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I use topcashback and it’s pretty useful for travel and online shopping. I’ve got grocery orders with most major supermarkets which usually do a £6-9 cashback for first time customers- that’s a lot of money! I think Monzo can definitely do this and I welcome instant notifications. If it’s included together in the transaction notification it won’t be “cluttering” the feed in any way. I remember a lot of users not wanting additional offers and things in their transaction feed, so this could be a good way of tying it together.

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Last time I looked at quidco there was no fee… is that new?

Absolutely. One of the reasons I gave up on quidco (my last transaction was 2.5 years ago!) was the affiliate links were so hit and miss… you’d follow them then the affiliate would claim you’d not used the link and refuse to pay.

Monzo can track this stuff with 100% accuracy, and hopefully pay out a lot faster.

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The first £5 of cashback earnings is deducted as a fee. If you don’t earn anything, you don’t pay.

It’s been like this since I joined in 2008.

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I’ve never had anything deducted according to my history.

My last one, tracked 15 march 2015, paid 21 October 2015, £50 cashback.

Maybe the retailer paid it…

Looking at that though if Monzo can improve on the payout times they’re on to a winner. I’d forgotten it was that slow…

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E5B7E4C1-5AD9-4C4E-A214-560245236EC1

Looks like they introduced a basic account. It was as I said when I joined, see premium retention fee column.

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The £5/year fee on Quidco is something from the old days. These days there are two tiers, a free one and Quidco Premium with the fee. Supposedly you get more cash back opportunities and better payout choices with premium.

If you’re an early user of Quidco from when the fee was mandatory then you’re automatically opted into premium and still pay the fee. You can opt-out if you want.

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Mine is just a bunch of 0s…

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Fantastic idea! Love it! :smile: it may have been said already, I generally skim read everything… :eyes: but would these merchants be accessible without any of my input? The realy annoying part of the cashback offers Lloyd’s offer is that you have to go and enable each time… ugghhh, it’s a pain to go check monthly what new offers there are, enable them and then get he cashback that way.

If this is automatically enabled and I just get free money then :ok_hand: combine this and automatically feeding into pots, fantastic saving posibilities :ok_hand:

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pot integration :+1:

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In the talk last night it was mentioned you wouldn’t really be looking at branching out into areas that might make you the competition to market place providers. I think mortgages were mentioned?

How will this place you with the likes of Flux/Tail who are currently live on Starling’s marketplace with cashback offerings?

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Would these companies want my habits and info in exchange for cashback?

I currently use my companies reward scheme and I got about £500 back last year which is ace…

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An interesting idea.

I sneer at cash back generally simply because it’s too much effort for me to bother with. My company has a scheme but it needs work and planning up front and I generally forget about it until it’s too late. Something that you guys manage will therefore appeal greatly since I don’t have to do anything :slight_smile:

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