Starling (for example) allow free deposits at the post office as do the other big traditional banks, if Starling allow free P.O deposits surely Monzo could?
You could say the same about cheque imaging. Clearly Monzo don’t see either of these as a priority.
They should but unfortunately dont think they would keep it as free.
@Josh261995 without derailing the topic too much, out of curiosity what attracted you to Monzo as you prefer cash?
From my point of view, I see Monzo setup mostly for a cashless future based on budgeting features, deposit limits etc.
Also, welcome 
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Yes, they “could” but they also “could” have offered PayPoint deposits for free but chose not to.
I’m not trying to be contentious here but Monzo have already shown that other banks offering something for free isn’t an overwhelming incentive for them to do the same.
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Just to add further to this, other banks offer it for free because they hide the charge in another service instead.
Monzo have said that they will always be transparent with their charging and not do shady things like this whereby those who don’t need the service end up subsidising it. So on that basis if it was to happen, I’d expect to pay for it because the Post Office do charge banks.
On this I’d say there’s a subtle difference between cross subsidy and “hiding the charge”. I’d agree with you that most banks are shady by getting their poorer customers to subsidise the richer ones’ free accounts, were it not for Starling proving that you can operate a low-fee model if your cost base is significantly lower (new tech, streamlined processes etc.) Starling provides more services for free, period. To me, this makes Monzo’s nickel and diming stand out even more. Having said that, you know I’m no fan of the argument just because one bank does do something, that means the other can. It just strikes me that Monzo didn’t get set up as efficiently.
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I understand what you’re saying - maybe it was a tad poor choice of wording on my behalf but the point I was trying to make remains regardless.
What I was getting at is that I don’t want to earn less interest (for example) to allow people to receive free cash deposits. I don’t use them and I don’t need them, so why should I help pay for the service.
Questioning the status quo and not following other banks is one thing I admire about Monzo. It doesn’t always work in my favour but overall I think they’re doing a great job. I wouldn’t say it’s nickel and diming either. They’re just saying, it costs us X, so if you want it you need to pay Y - I don’t think it can get any fairer than that?
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Maybe im a but more sceptical in this because to me its ultimately too hard to say what it would actually cost there are many different things that could happen a “cash deposit via post office” once it gets into your monzo account that could actually subsidise the cost of the deposit to get it there for monzo.
Its this stubbornness i think i disagree with from monzo and means i have to have a another bank.
Imagine if tesla were happy to keep their cars upper limits at 200 miles and say oh yeah if you drive anymore than that then you should keep your old ford also.
The real problem they have now is the setup cost if they were to switch from PayPoint to Post Office.
I remember years ago when they first launched PayPoint deposits, part of their justification in the blog post is they’d require a different chip to work with PO for deposits therefore having to replace all cards. The thing is though it would have cost a heel of a lot less to replace all the cards back then then it would do now, 5 million+ cards, some of which metal, we’ve got no chance, when they went PayPoint, they dashed our hopes of PO deposits
Agree with all of your analysis. Some banks definitely use hidden pricing (detrimental to fairness) and some use genuinely innovative cross-subsidy (which I encourage).
I’d be happy with Monzo’s general justification for per-event pricing, as ‘fair’, if it wasn’t for Starling’s existence proving ‘free’ is possible (cf. foreign ATM withdrawals).
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I don’t think that’s necessarily true and something they may have just said.
Some cards use swipe instead of chip to facilitate the banking services at the PO.
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False.
You can use swipe at a post office or most of them use a regular chip & pin machine which uses the same small chip as in all cards that already have PO features.
In @Addzy defence this is what Monzo stated as the reason for it not being as simple as just forming a partnership with the Post Office.
We can only take their word on it because none of us know any different.
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Thank you
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In further defence, here is a Monzo tweet:
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I don’t want to be mean as you’re new around here and we’re all a lovely welcoming bunch, but you’ve only made a handful of posts and most of them you’re posting info that’s completely wrong.
Maybe just double check what you’re posting.
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The Post Office require a specific chip configuration in order to allow chip deposits. Somebody posted the specifics a few years ago on the forum but I can’t find the link.
That’s why Starling had to reissue debit cards a few years ago when they launched Post Office deposits.
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Someone found it and posted the link 2 posts up 
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But the point is Starling DIDN’T ‘reissue debit cards’ at all, not in the sense that they sent everyone a new card, there are still plenty of people you see on social media disappointed that their purple cards are expiring meaning their new cards will be teal. Unlike the scenario in the tweet from Monzo, starling didn’t send out new cards to everyone immediately, but said ‘if you want a new one, you can order one’. Even then, I suspect many more people did so not because they wanted to use the Post Office but rather because they changed the design at the same time and people wanted the ‘new thing’, a teal vertical card instead of a purple horizontal one. Had the card looked identical I suspect there would have been far less ordered early on, and that only people who specifically wanted to use the post office would have switched, with everyone else getting new ones on loss/damage/expiry.
Monzo send enough cards out that they could always start early with the new chips, they must have data on the big dates that a lot of cards reach expiry so could arrange it around that, and we’ve seen new Business, Plus and Premium cards being rolled out, so those could have all launched with new chips. There are ways to do it without having to send 5m customers a new card all at once.
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