Just a note about physical addresses… In the past I have tried other banks’ CASS, and it has never been successful because of the different incompatible ways each bank records physical addresses. It seems to be problematic when there is more than one delivery address in a building (e.g. flats, multi-occupancy houses), and the storage of building name and flat number, and street name are in randomly chosen bank-specific fields. The account address then never matches for CASS.
I wonder if Monzo can consider ways to allow users to specify their real, Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF), address and what their current bank records this as? Clearly these need to be very similar to reduce fraud.
PS [not related to CASS, but generally address problems banks create] I gave up on one bank a few years ago after I updated my address with them online, and they incorrectly changed it when RE-KEYING it MANUALLY which later led to them blocking my account when they got bounced posted statements returned! When I rang up to ask about why they were using the slightly wrong address, they asked me for my postal address as part of their security identity verification
I have a big problem with this too but its actually even more complicated- it turns out PAF is not actually a full set of addresses - its a set of delivery addresses. There are actually properties (such as the one I live in) where there is only 1 delivery point for multiple ‘real’ addresses. PAF lists these as multi occupancies but you have to pull a second data set to get them.
A real example:
I live in flat b in my converted house. Our PAF delivery address is 27 b-d (which is actually 3 flats)
There are so many providers out there who have integrated PAF and believe its the real legal definition of where I live - makes it very difficult with banking, telephone lines, internet etc. Santander originally would only let me pick my address from the PAF list (e.g. forced me to choose 27 b-d) - then they made me send a ‘change of address form’ when I told them I actually live in flat b so it could be manually processed!
Interestingly given how many different address formats there could be for the same address this is why when banks do address verification as part of a transaction (on the billing address) - they just match the numbers in the address plus numbers in the postcode - a good approximation and handles different ways of writing address
Interesting feedback @_Colin_W and @JamesBell. I’ve worked at 6 banks/building societies before and the simple answer to ‘what is my address’ is solved in many different ways and I’ve never seen a perfect answer. In addition to the ‘real’ address, sometimes called a ‘principal’ address or where you actually live (whether in PAF format or not) - which can be more than adequate for some customers, there are a plethora of other addresses that are sometimes important:
Correspondence address (where written communications should be sent - hopefully none of those here!)
and the simple answer to ‘what is my address’ is solved in many different ways and I’ve never seen a perfect answer. In addition to the ‘real’ address, sometimes called a ‘principal’ address or where you actually live (whether in PAF format or not) - which can be more than adequate for some customers, there are a plethora of other addresses that are sometimes important: