De-couple the card from the package?

I’ve been reading the forums and just seems a little bizarre that when paying for Plus or Premium it appears a new card is issued and if cancelling Plus or Premium another card needs to be issued, which doesn’t seem the best environmentally or the most slick when you think about everything being digital and modern.

I can see the card itself is currently being ‘sold’ as part of the packages but wouldn’t it make more sense to de-couple the card and the packages.
Ie. If someone wants a holographic or metal card this could be a one-off payment and the card stays with them if they are on standard, plus or premium and isn’t package dependant.
Personally my card never sees the light of day as I use ApplePay but I can understand why others may want a particular looking card.

Would that be a win/win… for Monzo to get additional revenue for cards (from customers that wouldn’t want the package anyway), plus save Monzo money by not having to re-issue cards?

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea to have a Basic, Plus and Premium account offering, but do think the price points and benefits need to be right and personally I don’t think they are yet.
Both seem a little on the expensive side.
Would be nice to see Plus have real innovative features whilst Premium has the real good packages with are top quality and full of perks.

Will be interesting to see where Monzo go with that going forward.

You have a choice of whether you want to have a Plus card sent when you subscribe. Therefore you can keep using your coral one should you wish :+1:

P.S. This has been discussed at length as you mentioned. Probably better that it’s all kept in one place rather than another topic about it :slight_smile:

Discussed at length yeah but should perhaps be made into a feedback thread so that there can be votes attached? Some of the feeback ive seen is

  • some want the option to get a metal card separately
  • some want premium but dont want to pay for a metal card
  • some want the plus card after they cancel

Anything ive forgotten?

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I think the new side of this suggestion is this, right:
and I’ve said enough elsewhere about the environmental bit so no comments today from me…

I do like the concept, and I think if the price was right I would likely buy the metal card. (Have you heard the sound it makes when you tap it on a mug…).

My expectation on this though, is that it would be cost prohibitive to do so: The whole point around the premium account is to become a profit driver.

We know there is a £50 charge, that is somewhere close to Cost price, of the card.

I think if Monzo were to do this - they’d need to make a reasonable profit of people buying a card. If £50 is the sum total of the cards costs, including distribution + R+D payback, the card would have to be in the £75+ ball park for it to be profitable.

And even then that’s a one off revenue stream, vs someone keeping Premium for multiple years - so I could see the price increasing beyond.

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I’ve also been wondering whether there are Mastercard limitations at play (particularly with the Premium cards) since the debit cards themselves are a higher tier. Having one means there’s an expectation/agreement with the issuer to provide a selection of different features for you (lounge access, FX withdrawals, etc).

Does it muddy the waters when someone is walking around with their metal card, with none of the expected features?

Is it simple to just change the ‘tier’ of the cards being issued? Is it a case that they just have to use a different BIN in order to change the tier?

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I kinda like the idea of getting the card from a one off payment I’ll happily pay to just get the metal card alone

I think the cards should be exclusive to the tiers.

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That’s a fair point - from what I’ve seen, the new Metal cards have a different BIN to the Plus or Standard card.

I imaginet there’s a conscious element of “we’ll only put BIN X with card Y”; I think someone from Monzo in a different thread mentioned that. It’s certainly an approach that AMEX and the likes take.

What that did get me wondering - is it specifically the pairing with “World Elite” that allow the card to link to insurance / lounge packages (i.e, is that Monzo just turning on an existing MasterCard feature, vs their own commercial agreement) - or is there some other accessible benefit to the End User by being World Elite?

So then yeah, you may end up with 2 manufacturing streams; one of Just a metal card, and one with Metal + Premium features card… And that makes more complexity and more cost.

Edit: such bad spelling today…

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From what I understood from @erincandescent’s comments in another thread: by offering these additional end user features/services, and moving up the tiers, the bank can earn more from interchange. So by providing them, the bank generates more revenue from you spending on them.

Which then opens an interesting discussion (which is at risk of derailing this topic) of what the numbers would look like if a bank just gave everyone those features, and a world elite debit card, to enjoy higher interchange?

But back to the original point, I like the differentiated cards for different products - it’s all part of the package. It’s one of many things fintechs have done really well - Monzo with their hot coral, and Starling with the vertical cards - as you’re thinking about public appearance and marketing. I’ve had more conversations about a bank card, in stores and restaurants than I’d have ever expected. Nobody ever asked me about my Barclays one until I had a custom picture printed on it. You only have to look in the Monzo in the media thread to see how many places people spot the hot coral (even in TV documentaries).

Given that plus and premium are part of their path to profitability, then it suits the purpose that they remain exclusive to the tiers and provide a talking point to aid in those referrals. Sure, it won’t be as effective now they’re paid-for rather than free, but it’ll be more effective than people think - even if it’s just as a reminder that Monzo exist.

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Nah, the card is the retention thing. It is a physical piece that one clings on to.

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I receive the monzo card and it went in a safe box. It has stayed there since. I use Google pay and online payments so don’t need it. If it was metal that would make no difference to me at all.

£75**+** with a big emphasis on the plus sign.

A 33% gross margin is hardly ideal for a single product! I’d be wanting to charge £125 really (60%), but the question then is who would really pay that?

I think they’d need to bring manufacturing costs down a lot before a standalone card would be viable.

Exactly! 30%ish is the very low end of acceptability!

I’d imagine £125 too as a one off, but then you still would lose the ongoing revenue of the rest of the product, from the average life span of the product.

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People think they’d get it for £20 or something but you guys are right, it would have to be a lot more!

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