Is there a specific criteria to meet in order to be accepted for a current account?
Since discovering Mondo last year ive been extremely excited by the vision as a whole and have used my card almost daily since.
I also applied to be an Investor earlier in the year to put my money where my mouth is, in praising the efforts of Monzo and the direction we’re all here to be part of.
Ive got my other half signed up now too and im trying to convince others to follow.
It would be nice to see a queue count, to give those of us who expressed interest in the new current account an idea of when they may get accepted.
At this early stage, in order to be eligible for the current account, you’ll need to have been a Monzo customer for at least six months, with the majority of your transactions made in GBP in the UK and be a UK resident.
I know that, I wouldn’t have expressed interest if I hadn’t met those specifics. What I meant was, how do the team select who gets to try out the new account out of all those who made the cut?
The initial people selected have London postcodes & are investors in the second round of crowdfunding, then they started picking at random. If you were successful in investing in the second round it doesn’t guarantee you a spot but if you are you’ll probably get your debit card by post soon.
Hi all @Monzo,
Crazy thought here, whilst we are all lamenting the lack of women signed up for the CA why don’t you guys just go completely mental and offer to include the women who post regularly in the community forum the opportunity to sign up by post (I KNOW, crazy like a fox eh) seems to me a move like that would kill two birds with one stone…
Just saying…
That might not be so easy to achieve. First of all, Monzo doesn’t collect gender (I think?). Second, forum has no gender concept either. Third, you might make assumption by name, but that would be fairly manual assumption, time consuming and all!
And, there are not that many women on forum unfortunately! Also, preview is really optional, so not all women actually want to test and it’s totally fine (same as some men don’t want to test either).
If Monzo would to make a separate form sign-up just for women, that wouldn’t be too gender equall, wouldn’t it? And I’m also sure, some male forum users might seriously consider changing gender, just to get their hands on CA…
@Avishai that’s kinda the point though isn’t it that not many women are willing to put their names down for the beta testing however if you are actively engaged enough to contribute regularly on the forum why wouldn’t you want to beta test the CA to ensure that the look/feel/use of it gives everyone the best damn CA in the UK (and then the world when Monzo make their bid for world domination, that’d be next month’s job ) and yes, I fully get that Monzo don’t collect gender but… for the most part people tend to put their actual name after their avatar so always an off chance they could extrapolate the forum members who are female. Also just as an FYI, I’ve only been with Monzo for 2 months so I’d be ruled out but if I wasn’t you can be sure I’d be stomping around trying to sort a CA asap
Women are more than welcome to put their name on the list, if they match criteria. But main CA criteria was basically narrowing down the list of users with ID below 100,000th. In earlier days, Monzo was more male-dominated, but it’s not a gender criteria limiting chances, only moment when you created Monzo account.
Because user, regardless of gender, has to feel comfortable testing stuff. Things can go wrong, testing takes time, reporting stuff takes time. Some might be conscious that they won’t tinker with app enough to be able to provide feedback and they don’t feel like other people might be more useful in this phase. People might not be interested in this, and prefer to start a bit later, when app is more finished - that’s totally their right. All of us are beta users, but there’s a difference between prepaid Beta and CA Preview. Gender has nothing to do with it.
@Avishai I get that, I really do but the point I was trying to make was that Monzo are the ones setting the criteria and are also coincidentally advising that the beta testers for CA are primarily male so why not throw an offer out there to the women on the forum (some of whom have probably signed up for the beta testing) and if there are any takers sign them up using the postal option rather than visiting HO (I read on another posting a number of women wouldn’t feel comfortable heading to London to spend an evening in a predominantly male sign up and then in another post about the time it took to complete sign up, something like until 3am… my last train would have left London by then and paying for a hotel room to get a bank account is just that step too far for me) et voila - 2 birds, one stone… increase the uptake on the beta testing for women, increase the postal/online sign up. Yes, I also understand that might PO a number of early adopters but I’m not suggesting they offer to all just those who meet the 6 month minimum criteria
Well, throwing an extra offer is not gender equality, for me it’s as simple as that. I absolutely love ideas of encouraging, promoting and all, but offering something that’s ‘only’ for females doesn’t sit right with me - and I’m a female. Even thought of having such offer, just because of gender, is slightly discriminatory - suggesting that women need extra protection and care. Chances are equal for both genders, like it should be, and there’s a lot of thought and consideration put in place by Monzo.
I agree on Open office bit in general, I wish more women would attend, but as an attendee (three times? I think), I can vouch there’s nothing ‘manly’ about those meetings, they are plain awesome. However, this won’t be changed by forcing quotas on events (or CA rollout).
I have to say I agree with you @Avishai that trying to push for more female Monzo to join account previewing isn’t the way to go. I am female myself and I think that ok I am a rare female amongst several male tech people liking to the the bank account. Hence why I am using Starling at moment whilst watching what Monzo do.
Have to say I agree with that.
Doing that would be what’s know as positive discrimination, essentially.
In it’s worse form, companies use it as a hiring criteria so they can pad their diversity stats. Often it works out a very bad match for company and employee: https://where.coraline.codes/blog/my-year-at-github/
Fellow female here! I agree with Marta that there should be more women at open offices/ meetups for a less overwhelming gender ratio, but if everyone is friendly and welcoming I wouldn’t mind it too much. Everyone’s spending patterns are different so I wouldn’t say that giving more women CA would give Monzo significantly different data than what they’re doing now. If investors are prioritised it makes sense that more men are getting their CA faster.
Obviously, this is not saying that all positive discrimination is bad and in some cases I do think there should be some. eg physical current account rollouts, making sure women are not dismissed based on stereotypes “all women are bad at directions”/ “all women are bad at IT” while hiring
I think my initial question was answered by the majority.
Gender has absolutely nothing to do with it, it is solely down to individuals who want to register their interest to firstly join Monzo and get a prepaid card, and secondly to register interest for trialling the new current account while in its infancy.
Offering additional incentives to women, is basically discriminating against men so thats definitely not the way to go.
It’s a personal choice, the men who signed up to the Monzo account saw the same advertising as the women so im not sure why there is an imbalance, if one even exists at all.
you did not have to stay in London until it completed at 3am, having done the ID verification online we left the office and caught our trains home from London and were at home asleep or sitting up at home watching our mobiles…no hotel room involved
I’d like to think that everyone who comes through these doors feels welcome and comfortable but spending time with people who share similar interests and experiences to you is a big part of this. Some (not all!) aspects of this sense of ‘belonging’ are related to gender which is why we need to work hard to make sure we offer a programme of events which reflects the diversity of our customer base. It’s very hard to ensure an equal gender balance at an event but the Inspire event a few weeks ago was a pretty equal split, which tells me we’re heading in the right direction and we should continue working on different formats and subject matter to ensure that the Monzo community really feels that there is an event in the calendar at any given time which speaks to them
This is pretty much what I wanted to say but didn’t manage to put forth very well. It’s not “I only want to speak to women at the event”, that’s not it at all, I love how friendly everyone is- it’s more of knowing that women are welcome/ belong to an active part of the community no one likes feeling like the odd one out.
I think another “group” that I would like to see more of is students, to discuss our experiences with using Monzo etc., but I think it would be difficult for students to travel (time/money). I don’t really see a lot of people my age on the forum, but maybe we have little experience in fintech or aren’t as jaded about the state of legacy banks. This is a little off-topic: I’ve tried to introduce the card to my peers, but so far the ones who have actually used it are international students who travel a fair bit. The £100 initial top-up was another factor in not taking it up. I signed up when the £25 initial top-up offer was still in place.
eh) seems to me a move like that would kill two birds with one stone…
And I’m also sure, some male forum users might seriously consider changing gender, just to get their hands on CA… 
) and yes, I fully get that Monzo don’t collect gender but… for the most part people tend to put their actual name after their avatar so always an off chance they could extrapolate the forum members who are female. Also just as an FYI, I’ve only been with Monzo for 2 months so I’d be ruled out but if I wasn’t you can be sure I’d be stomping around trying to sort a CA asap 
no one likes feeling like the odd one out.