I’m seeing a difference in the way DDs work in Monzo to my previous Coop account. I’ve just had a DD (first payment) fail at 2am in the morning. I’ll now incur a £30 charge from the originator.
With my previous account I’d have had until end of business day to have enough funds to clear the DD.
I can imagine this being a real issue if I have DDs set for pay day - and all the DDs fail at (say 2am) and then pay funds come in at (say 3am)
DD pots are one answer, but don’t cover all the use cases (including the one above)
Is it possible for Monzo to hold DD authorisation (where funds aren’t available) until later in the day, with a notification:
“We’ve been asked for Direct Debit paymemts totalling £xx.xx. We can’t hold off declining these payments until 3pm. Please top up your account if you wish to cover these payments”
I think this has been mentioned before on other threads that Monzo currently do not retry DD and you need to have the correct balance the day before so it can come out at 2am etc
The handling of DD is one of the most puzzling aspects of Monzo to me. Why have they implemented it in such a way, which is so clearly inferior to that of any other UK bank I know?!
Anyway, this has been discussed before, and this is the summary of the current situation as I see it:
Monzo have no intention of changing this - at least not in the short or medium term - however, the following mitigations / workarounds are in place:
You should get a notification for all outgoing DD the day before they are due, which should allow you to take action if you have sufficient funds elsewhere (but that obviously doesn’t help if you are waiting for your salary).
Speaking of salary: If your DD go out on payday and you are paid using BACS you should be fine, as BACS credits are processed before DD. Personally, I wouldn’t trust this, and:
As a workaround the most reasonable thing to do (short of switching to another bank, of course) is to ask the provider that’s collecting the DD to move it by a few days. I’d suggest 5 days after payday, to cover long bank holiday weekends. The vast majority of providers are more than happy to set the DD date to any day you wish, if you just ask, without needing a reason. But sadly there are a few exceptions.
What I am beginning to learn is that Monzo, although thinks it has a chance of challenging legacy banks, is not prepared or able to apply some of the basic banking needs of people just yet.
Issue around DD and overdraft facilities as an example here
We seem to have a charge card account that now has a sort code and account number.
The rest of the banking facilities such as loans, OD, savings, interests, credit card, ISAs etc are somewhat a long way away.
Well, this should probably be moved to another thread but Monzo have clearly stated that they never want to implement some of these (savings, credit card, ISA, etc). Monzo want to only do a current account. They do, however, want to have the best current account on the market, and I think they are still way off the mark here
The only way to make it the best Current account on the market is to listen to their customers and possibly employ a better means of managing expectations
I’ve been watching various You Tube videos on the future ideas and reading all the community forrum inputs to various topics and issues
Maybe I just need to be a little patient or maybe MONZO needs to move a little quicker
It’s a difficult one. I personally have no issues with these things due to being quite on top of when my payments go out, and never wanting an overdraft.
Also, if a DD does fall, I know if I phone up and pay it manually the same day, you generally won’t get any charge applied.
The thing I find difficult is Monzo listening to Feedback. It’s been mentioned before that they don’t actually seem to be listening at all. They have all their ideas in their heads, and it’s just lucky that it ties in with something we want.
Like why do we have a pulse graph, when we don’t have direct debits working properly? (properly being in the sense mentioned above)
I asked about an option for a VIP account recently, to which @simonb just responded with “it’s not something we are looking in to at the moment” to which I responded with “Any reason as to why?” and I got absolutely no response whatsoever
Was that feedback/suggestion taken into consideration at all? In my eyes, absolutely not. Sorry Simon!
I’m sure they will get there, and maybe currently Monzo isn’t for a lot of people
I am in a position where I can’t actually open an account with Starling, but I’ll be completley honest, I don’t understand why anybody that can is still here.
Unfortunately in some occasions valuable feedback or suggestions are simply shut down. But that’s another thread.
My daughter who lives and works in London came out with a valid point to me. Whilst working as a waiter she only came across Monzo card holders and no one from Starling. Her new work place ( architectural firm) encourages Monzo and not Starling.
That’s why I applied for Monzo, so that I could join in with my children
I personally get the impression that Monzo dominates the London market. I get the impression that Starling dominates more outside of London. But that is a complete guess and I could be totally wrong.
How odd though about her employers recommending Monzo… I’ve never been recommended a bank by any employer (Apart from Halifax)
Makes perfect sense though. With this being an isolated case, I’d love to hear other people’s reasoning.
But it’s that alien here that colleagues & customers just think I am weird… (everybody is still very much under the impression that it wouldn’t be a proper bank)
The lady I served that had one said exactly the same - so I know it isn’t just me
Saying that - she was recommended by a friend, so they obviously are about. But we are very close to Cheltenham lol
Edit: I couldn’t get my dad to switch, my sister, her husband (who has had jobs coding in SASS I think that is what it’s called? For two major banks, couldn’t get my mum to switch - and my girlfriend would but she hasn’t renewed her provisional licence. And before I got my licence renewed, it was quite complicated and took too long, so I decided not to bother)
The one thing I can’t get my head around, and I’m not sure why it would be the case, but I’m pretty sure that currently, banks like Lloyd’s, RBS and HSBC, will not currently be worried about Monzo and Starling, and probably look at them as a bit of a joke
but
