There should be a fourth option – Ban any critical voices from the forum
You really have messed this up, haven’t you?
Oops! 
I feel like you knew what the answer was gonna be 
and whilst I voted how I voted, the fact you included it is testament to the validity of your poll master status 
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Sometimes it’s better not to ask the question…
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Smile/Co-op current accounts, Smile/Co-op credit cards and M&S credit cards. Starling as well for preference as I do some business there, if not as much. Without those there’s a huge chunk of my financial activity missing, and no point at all in paying for Plus. Add those, and I’d probably stump up the fiver a month.
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They are, along with Metro and the John Lewis Partnership Card credit card, the top offenders at not having an API, so can’t be supported properly even if Monzo wanted to.
Tesco and M&S do have API support for their credit cards and savings accounts, but Tesco Bank’s API is very flaky and not a good experience.
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I’ve been looking at alternatives to M&S and Smile for the same reasons. Trouble is, I have longstanding banking relationships with them, and decent credit limits. I got the cards when I was employed. I’d probably struggle to get anything comparable now I’m freelance even though I make more money…
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Yep, I’m aware of that. Still makes Plus rather pointless for me though. Is/will there be any compulsion for banks to provide APIs?
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There is already a regulatory requirement to support Open Banking for “payment accounts” (accounts that you can pay directly into and out of) but this doesn’t have to be via API, it can be via Modified Customer Interface (MCI) - which is basically like screen scraping.
Most providers of Open Banking services have decided to not support MCI connections as they are less reliable and much less secure.
The government is currently looking into whether to expand Open Banking to 1) require APIs and 2) require all accounts to support it, potentially even including pensions (through a sort of “Open Money”, rather than just banking, system).
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Thought I’d read something like that recently when looking at a supplier website but couldn’t recall the details. Thanks @SebH 
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You may have read it here a while back?
I’m sure someone (it may have even been me, I can’t remember) posted a link to a nice explanation about it from MoneyDashboard.
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Hadn’t realised this.
Feels quite out of step with Metro’s “we’re so modern” image, but I suppose that’s not really true anymore.
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I went to credit karma and only looked at things I was guaranteed to be accepted for
Saved the trouble of comparing lots of things and not knowing if I’d be accepted
Higher limit and better APR as well
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At, thought it may have been on the Accesspay website (been putting their stuff in at a client) or the wearepay.uk website - but I do read a lot of the stuff on here so who knows…
At my age, my memory isn’t what it once was 
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Yeah Metro made a bit of a fuss about it.
At first they said the MCI solution was temporary and they were developing an API; then the API was delayed; then the API was cancelled and they stated that MCI was planned to be their permanent solution going forwards.
If anything, Metro Bank is now in a niche as a “traditional, yet challenger” bank.
They have a branch-focused outlook, their differentiator is good branch service and 7 day opening. Their technology is OK but nowhere near banks like Monzo or Starling.
Until 2018 you couldn’t apply for an account with them online, it had to be in one of their “stores”.
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It may have been something on the wearepay.UK website, I can imagine the detailed regulatory stuff would be on there somewhere.
I remember there was a discussion about it here before though.
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Dodgy link there @SebH… But yes, there’s some interesting stuff. New Payments Architecture will be interesting and is needed. But I risk derailing the thread so will shut up now
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Sorted it!
Thanks for pointing that out, it was an absent-minded moment.
Indeed, there is lots of interesting stuff around on official websites about NPA, and it certainly seems to be full steam ahead at the moment. This sort of feature will be far better once NPA is fully rolled out, too, as it should allow traditional banks to upgrade their often quite “dirty” and muddled data to something much more coherent and helpful for the customer.
As a result, open banking connections will have much better quality data attached to them, making things like Trends much better and other new features possible.
Or that’s the idea!
(But yes, let’s not derail the thread)
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I’ve done it myself!
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Emma already has this, but with the recent addition of smart rules, so you can create a manual transaction automatically on the manual account when something happens on a real account. It sets the bar quite high for Monzo…
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