Competitor update

Some banks like Handelsbanken have recently switched from Visa Debit to MasterCard Debit, and customer cards are gradually being replaced on renewal or if lost/stolen card replaced

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There we go, I must be slipping as I couldn’t remember if that part had been said here by anybody from the Monzo team. :anguished:

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happens as you get older :slight_smile:

Yes. Exactly right. You bring the licence, we’ll bring the platform. Our pricing is a pay-as-you-grow model. Effectively on a per transaction basis. But it really does depend on the client. But that is our preferred model.

Monese is just a pre-paid debit card with a nice app. The technology (very difficult to find out what it’s built on) may sit in the cloud but what will they do when they want to offer more services? And how will they make money? As you can see, they now charge a monthly fee for using their card. So that tells it’s own story.

What Leveris and Monzo are doing, is the only way you can drive innovation in a bank. By owning the whole stack, we can use agile product development to drop products and/or integrate 3rd party products through our open API’s.

All we are striving to do is create an open data platform that integrates innovation from various industries that deliver exceptional user experiences. Be that financial or otherwise.

I recently expanded my current account with Nationwide to an additional joint account with my girlfriend via only having to fill out a form online and going in store with ID. I filled out everything online, even though we live in different addresses there was no problem and I mainly use it to pay for shared activities such as travel, dinner, cinema etc.

The online experence is great IMO, where I can see my 1 personnal account and our joint account

Not a direct competitor of Monzo, as it’s not a bank and doesn’t appear to have any aspirations to become one, but Pariti have some pretty nice features around forecasting ones financial activity across multiple accounts, both debit, credit and savings and is able to predict when a person will be free of debt based upon spending and savings habits. I know cash flow forecasting is on the roadmap, under the better budgeting feature I think I’m right in saying.

As Monzo is building a bank to help us better manage our finances, maybe they should become friends, or at least learn from what they’re doing as it would be handy to see my expected income and expenses in one neat app :smile:

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Just spoke to Matthew, the CEO and founder of Pariti. He says they are working on it and can hopefully expect an integration soon :smile:

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Uber launches its own debit card for Mexicans, which this article states is

a local equivalent of Monzo and Simple.

Could be a future contender if they decide launch in other countries too, which I would see as highly likely if this venture of theirs proves successful.

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Thats cool! It seems the bank Bankaool is the one compared to Monzo rather than Uber’s card themselves. As for Uber, it looks like this is based around bringing more unbanked into the digital spending world (for which a prepaid offering is a good idea) - I wouldnt necessarily see this as their move into banking (unless they decide to invest heavily in the experiene)

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Yeah true :smile: Regardless of who they bank with, every honest person deserves an easy and trustworthy banking experience.

Who knows except for them really. They’ve already created a food delivery service after their initial taxi service.

Not strictly a Monzo competitor (and US only) - but interesting to read the consumer reaction to this metal credit card:

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I asked the same thing.

When their website works, Juno is something to look at as it’s a UK startup bank aimed mostly at millenials as is Monzo. The link I’ve provided goes to their page on BetaList.

I had a look at their website and it not loading properly at the moment but gives their ethos and their target groups such as freelancers and a form to provide your email address to get on their mailing list

Their last tweet was in August 2015 too…

https://twitter.com/bankjuno

Also -

after thinking long and hard about this we decided that the best way to launch our bank would be to not create a bank at all. Instead, we want to partner with an existing one.

We have a list of potential suitors we feel would make a good match (contingent to a sizeable dowry) based on the following:

  • We provide: the brand, product and entire user experience catered to a segment we understand
  • They provide: the accreditations, accounts, customer service and ability to issue a debit card

That was not going to happen :grimacing:

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Lol, ok maybe they’re dead, or at least just a smaller competitor then.

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Still, interesting to see what doesn’t work for future reference :slight_smile:

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Would Monzo users be willing to pay for a premium service if it was offered - but weren’t forced to and would be able to chose to stay with “standard” service ?

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agree with you there :grin:

This is more or less the same card with the same features in the N26 app, but it comes with insurance coverage from Allianz.

Judging by Tom’s recent comments on the panel at LendIt USA (1:40 onwards) I don’t think he’d be in favor of establishing that sort of partnership, in order to offer this service to customers.

His concern is that banks don’t offer the best deal to customers when they provide these services because they know that the customer’s unlikely to leave, due to their own inertia.

The problem is they’re [cross-sold products] never the best, most competitive products because you reserve those for your new customers, to attract new customers in.

If Monzo enables users to request quotes from multiple insurance providers instead, through Monzo, then the user can choose the solution that’s best for them (& Monzo still earns revenue by taking a referral fee from the chosen provider).

The other benefit of that approach for Monzo is that it removes an incentive for customers to switch to another bank because another bank’s account offers an add on (like insurance), that is better than Monzo’s.

I would happily pay a fee for extra value added services but I’m not sure exactly what they’d be.

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