Yikes not me 
it does look to take on Revolut a bit.
Still feel once they get their licence Monzo will fall short as Revolut, IMO, offers far more perks for the younger crowd and those wanting to invest in various platforms (S&S ISA, Stocks, Crypto).
My full salary gets paid in USD so if the rates end up being better than Wise (which I have used every month for 8+ years now) I will get very excited. Especially if it gets to a point where I could open a Monzo USA account, get paid into that, and then move money over right away at good rates. (Right now I get paid into my Capital One US account, move money to my Natwest via Wise, and then send a smaller amount to my savings pots in Monzo.)
One thing to point out is thereās a not insignificant segment of the market of workers in the UK who receive RSUs and regularly need to transfer significant sums of money from overseas stock accounts into GBP.
In fact I get very targeted adverts calling out RSU vests from Wise at certain points in the year on LinkedIn because of my employer. Iām sure Monzo can see spikes in certain parts of the year in transfers coming in from Wise so I reckon amongst all other things, Monzo want a part of that pie.
Oh I totally get that part. Just Iāve seen folk I know donāt receive in foreign currencies get excited by these things and someone mentioned spending in Europe via this rather than Revolut.
I just donāt get the quibble over literal pennies if all youāre doing is a few weekends in Europe. Just use Monzo.
Thatās the only reasons I figured there must be more to this than I could see. Turns out there isnāt!
Oh I 1000000% agree.
We were wondering how long it would be until the word got out!
First, the question everyoneās askingā¦ how do I get invited? In short, weāll let you know when itās time. As a lot of you have pointed out, the functionality right now is very limited. Only holding and sending euro and dollar is available, with local bank details for receiving and spending on card coming soon. This means the product isnāt ready for everyone to use yet, and probably wouldnāt be very useful to most of you in itās current form. Instead, weāve invited a few users whose previous activity suggests they would find the account useful in its current state, so we can start learning and iterating. For instance, some people may prefer to save for a future euro expense in euros ahead of time, to lock in the rate.
Everything you are seeing right now is subject to change, including the costs, but we aim for this to be a very competitive proposition.
The rails we use to make transfers from these accounts are the same as the ones used to transfer from the main gbp account. The only difference is that users can decouple the conversion from the transfer, so they can do each at the time that best suits them (to reiterate, we know this is a very narrow use case hence the limited availability).
Weāre as excited as you are (probably more) to get the fully functional version out and weāll let you know when we do. In the meantime, please keep the discussion going and let us know if you have any questions, the team will be keeping an eye on this thread 
Thanks for coming on here to update us @albertmonzo and look forward to seeing how this develops.
I know from Its Orlando Time on Facebook that a lot of people transfer GBP into USD before their holidays so they know exactly what they have to spend in USD rather than having to worry about exchange rates as they spend.
Itās not something Iāve ever worried about, but a reasonable number of people do it!
I, personally, would use it to regularly (weekly/monthly/when thereās a good rate) transfer money into Euros for holiday spending.
As above, I like to have a more frictionless holiday/travel knowing exactly what Iām spending without needed to do mental calculations based on exchange rates.
Thank you for filling us in Albert!
I am looking forward to a community preview as I would love to try this myself.
I find Revolutās app much too convoluted and sometimes I donāt know where to tap to find things. Itās just way too bloated for me. Monzo is much simpler in comparison, and much more pleasant to use, so that, for people like me, would be a deterrent to go all in with Revolut.
If you go to Europe (Euro zone) or the USA is it cheaper to use your currency account ie pay in EUR or USD or pay in GBP and allow it to be converted?
I can see the benefit of receiving funds into your currency account.
It depends on what the exchange rate was when you put the money into the Currency Exchange account compared to the exchange rate when you made the purchase.
I suspect this is the start of the end of free foreign currency spend on our cards. That fee will make itās way into all foreign currency transactions. Not saying this feature is not useful but at the moment I donāt know why anyone would convert to foreign currency ahead of time if saving it in a pot in sterling and then just paying directly from sterling saves you that 0.25% fee.
Once the fee is applied to all foreign currency transactions then this feature might start to make a bit more sense and give the customers slightly more control about when to exchange/what to spend.
Before anyone jumps at me, this is not at all criticism, just an observation, at the end of the day Monzo are a business and as long as the fees are still competitive, it is what it is!
My parents got a Monzo account each specifically for fee-free international spending when they go on holiday. If Monzo do start adding a fee, then they will likely close their accounts and move elsewhere.
However, considering they donāt use their accounts for anything else, I doubt this will be of any concern to Monzo at all as they are not making a lot of money from them (if any)
I do use Monzo as my main bank, and use it for online international purchases (sometimes to cheaper to pay in USD/EUR than it is to pay in GBP) so I would be more impacted if a fee is introduced. I would need to look at my options should they add a fee for international purchases.
I understand where youāre coming from, but I donāt think that will happen. If anything, commission-free spending is becoming more prevalent across the banking industry, not less. Monzo would be shooting themselves in the foot (with a plasma rifle) if they started charging for foreign transactions.
Starling also charge something like 0.4% for conversions/transfers from GBP to EUR account, and theyāve done so ever since the Euro account has been around if I remember correctly, but they still offer commission-free spend and cash abroad from the GBP account.
With competition from Starling, Revolut, and even Lloyds now, plus all the credit cards out there that also offer fee-free spending abroad, it would be a terrible business idea to impose fees.
I would say absolutely nowhere has the introduction of a fee for foriegn card spending been suggested by Monzo. If anything a lot of traditional banks have been moving to match Monzo / revolut with fee free spending from their cards so I donāt see it changing anytime soon.
For me whatās nice about having a separate currency account is being able to make cheaper international payments by bank transfer in addition to recieving in a foriegn currency.
Iām still under the impression they want the business from Wise and revolut, but have USA and EUR bank details with their accounts, meaning monzo misses out.
With USA in progress and EU in motion, bank account details for either will be possible for those who need them (I personally wouldnāt).
Makes total sense to me that Monzo would move this way, especially as USD and EUR are likely to be the currency people/businesses get paid in, if not in GBP. Iād love to have a psuedo account for each currency that I could pay out of or alternatively, have an easy way to transfer money into my main GBP account.
What if they moved to a scenario where everyone on āstandardā pays 0.25% but if youāve got a Perks or Max account you get it for free? Like the investment fees.
It would help push some people onto plans, which Iām sure they must want.
But thatās a very bad tactic to force upon millions of customers.
If my fee free spending abroad started charging fees Iād shuffle back to Revolut by principle.