Oh. In which case my view is that at least Monzo make it clear and simple! When speaking with my last bank (TSB) about how to cash the cheque* the conversation descended into farce when they started debating with me how long it ‘should’ take me to travel to the branch closest to me! Became even more ridiculous when they then started to try to offer a strategy for me to get to said branch during the 16 or so hours they were open… I admit, I may have led them on a little just for fun…
*For full disclosure, and in the interest of fairness to TSB, I’ve since found out I could probably have used a post office to cash a cheque…
Yes you could, but their service was really poor if they didn’t suggest this when you spoke to them, especially if you indicated that getting to your nearest bank branch was going to be difficult for you.
TSB do also allow you to post cheques to them, but I think it’s at the customer’s expense!
Is a shame the ‘freepost monzo’ info has been removed from the pay in cheque button though, obviously less people will realise Freeport us an option now. They won’t look on here or in the help section unless they are really struggling but ‘pay in cheque’ is pretty easy to find. Sounds like a money saving thing for monzo which has been dressed up
Mine still has the free post on it, but I agree, this is probably a smart move given how slow it is.
It will save more in staff handling time for questions than for the actual cost of sending it I expect. It’s not like Monzo will get thousands and thousands of cheques.
Honestly, I couldn’t give a flying one anymore about the fact that I can post a cheque to Monzo for it to be cleared eventually whether it be free to do so or not.
My old bank, NatWest, who I kept my account with for the sole reason that I sometimes need to deposit the occasional cheque and this is sometimes more convenient and always faster than posting to Monzo, have implemented cheque imaging from within their app. I can use this now.
Why - in the year 2021 - after initially promising the feature in 2018 and then 2019 after a global pandemic in 2020, are Monzo not talking about implementing this feature?
Legacy banks have made amazing progress over the last few years to catch up with the challengers. They are now in some cases exceeding the feature set on offer.
What are Monzo’s plans on cheque imaging so they can catch up with the majority of other banks who already have this?
Legacy banks with millions of customers who are used to cheques and still handle them, have implemented a system to deal with it better.
Monzo have a demographic that skews younger who by their nature use cheques less. In the years that this has been talked about, use has further declined.
They’ve not promised anything, it is on hold indefinitely. If you’re interested in why and such, have a read of this topic because it has been covered extensively.
For High Street banks, introducing cheque imaging in-app was simple – they were already using the imaging system to clear all cheques in the back office and it wouldn’t have been a major piece of work to add a module to their apps (it’s probably a generic module from the clearing system).
Monzo isn’t even signed up to the clearing system.
This isn’t that different for Monzo, all cheques are now cleared through ICS as paper-based clearing has shut down.
I think Monzo scan the cheques and send them to NatWest for clearing, although they also might give the paper cheques to NatWest to do the scanning. I’m not sure which it is.
It shouldn’t be a major piece of work to allow scanning into the app for NatWest to clear the image (or join the scheme instead, if Monzo want to).
Perhaps not the functionality part but what we do know is that Monzo stated that the application was lengthy and time consuming with only a few windows of opportunity per year. This is more likely where the bulk of the cost would come from and they probably crunched the numbers and found it not to be worthwhile. Either that or a long time to recoup their costs when they can better focus their efforts elsewhere.
It would seem that from comments on here people are content with using a different bank, whom most have had this most of this setup back when cheques were popular. Now that cheques are in decline and the average person receives one few and far between you start to understand why it’s not really a priority. Especially when people transfer the money from their cheques back into Monzo - so it’s a win win for them.
Yes, that’s why I suggested that they could probably utilise NatWest’s membership of the scheme instead of joining themselves. With some minimal integration work to send the images to NatWest, plus an ongoing fee for the service, they could free-up staff time currently used for manual processing. But it may still be estimated as overall costing more.
I think you’re right that they’ve binned the idea as they’ve calculated that most people will keep using Monzo and just go elsewhere to deal with cheques.
Monzo should reconsider. This very thread has the fourth highest vote count across all ideas posted in this forum.
It’s clear there is some desire for it, even if the demographic aren’t commonly cheque users. Do you know who are commonly cheque users? Many companies who have customers in Monzo’s demographic, many small businesses who employ people in Monzo’s demographic, many relatives of people in Monzo’s demographic.
I’d rather bite my own arm off than ever have to deal with a cheque ever but, unfortunately, sometimes you get one and you have to deposit it. I can’t imagine even the most “boomer” Monzo customers ever wanting to write a cheque. I’m not asking for a cheque book. I’m just asking for the tedium of someone giving me a cheque to be lessened.
Perhaps it’s time for Monzo to officially comment with some actual substance? If they have no intention of ever implementing it, why have they not said so and closed this thread?
My guess is they want to leave the door open for it in the future, just in case they change their minds, and also avoid it popping up as a regular new thread as a feature request.
Keeping this thread open keeps all discussion of the feature in one place.
What more transparency are you after? They’ve said they’re not planning on offering it.
You can speculate all you want about the number of people, amounts of money they’d make, or the supposed cost of producing it but don’t you think Monzo will have already crunched the numbers with their vast amounts of data they have?
If it was a no brainer to offer this, they’d have certainly done it by now. They’re a business after all.
