Competitor update

[anon44204028]

@alexs

launching a bank is harder than it looks

While Orange may have put their plans for a bank on hold, O2 have already launched a bank in Germany

[j06 (Jamie)]

Curve launches Go Back In Time

Go Back in Time with Curve!

[j06 (Jamie)]

I am intrigued by this latest Curve update. I have a Curve card and, frankly, since they lost Amex connectivity it has been pretty much unused, as its selling point for me was a central log/catagorisation of all my spending.

I wonder how Go Back In Time interacts with things like pending transactions, bank charges and unauthorised overdrafts.

[thewzrdharry (David Preston)]

Does anyone know when Coconut will be launching or how long the wait period is for beta?

[Mikeee (Mike)]

Hmmmm, didn’t work too well last time they tried in the UK. I wonder if they’ll partner with Fidor again to bring o2 money back to the uk?

[anon23935806]

Given that we’re talking about Orange it doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s a company that tries to do everything but does nothing well - they can’t even get their main products (mobile and residential internet access) right and their customer service is appalling (think Comcast for those familiar with the broadband situation in the US). I am glad they are postponing/abandoning this idea, hopefully that’ll give them more resources to focus on improving their core products.

[j06 (Jamie)]

Remember, when Orange was created, back in 1994, they were pioneers and won countless awards, including for customer service and satisfaction. Then they got bought, and the writing was on the wall. Then they got sold to a state owned ‘incumbent’ and the rest is history.

A lesson for Monzo, there.

[anon23935806]

A lot of companies went down that route, but it seems like this issue is especially prevalent in the telecoms sector. I’m sure most telecoms companies we love to hate used to be innovative and truly cared about their customers.

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

We found out from the annual report today that

Around 40% of the per-customer loss is due to international ATM usage outside the UK or EU, with a small minority of our user-base driving the majority of this cost.

And

As a result, we will explore ways to reduce this cost in collaboration with our community – it will not be a profit-making exercise. UK and EU ATM usage costs us much less, and we aim to keep this free. We still believe foreign exchange at point-of-sale (in shops, restaurants and online) can be provided to customers for free.

So it sounds like users might be asked to start covering (some of?) the cost of using ATM’s outside the UK / EU soon…

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

Here’s the FT’s Alphaville team’s (so no paywall but you need to create an account to read it) take on the annual report -

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/07/04/2190964/monzo-accounts-show-growth-losses-and-a-little-bit-of-hand-holding/