Now that Monzo is a mid-sized incumbent bank, rather than a scrappy start-up, I’m wondering whether there’s anything now that’s truly unique to Monzo? As far as I can tell, all its features have been copied by the legacy banks or other startups (pots, card freezing, notifications etc).
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Unfortunately the main difference I find with Monzo now is how aggressive they are at pushing their other products/services at you.
I can’t do anything in the app without getting nagged to upgrade, refer someone, open an investment pot etc
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Bill splitting can’t be beaten as yet, Revolut has a good bill split but not as many folk have accounts to make it simple.
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Yeah I’ve noticed that too.
If Monzo can’t win anymore on features, or at least know they will copied almost straight away - you’d think their strategy would be coherence of features and user experience. Pop up ads don’t really help on that front.
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I pay for Extra.
Monzo has the best designed, most responsive AND streamlined (looking at you Revolut) app out of all banking apps I’ve tried.
Fastest to unlock and see balances, updates happen quickly and reliably, the design of the open banking bit is the best I’ve seen. Transfers and payments are much better than other apps (although still room for some improvement). Merchant logos AND names (look at e.g. Lloyds, the names of companies and people are a mess esp. when a bit too long), transaction information, adding notes, the list goes on and on.
It’s just so far ahead compared to everyone else.
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Wouldn’t quite call it a mid-sized incumbent bank I think that’s a stretch when Monzo’s customer numbers barely touch on those of the traditional UK banks would personally still classify Monzo as a start up but to each their own
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It’s a good thing, I think. Competition from Monzo (and other digital banks) forces others to be better. I wouldn’t consider Monzo an incumbent but I guess they’re no longer a startup either.
I think what they do best is feature design. Not always (and there are things lacking such as joint account parity) but when they get it right (Flex, mortgage view etc.) I think they are the best of the bunch. The other area I’d point to would be documentation. Nothing really ‘unique’ in the sense I think you meant it though.
You say “Looking at you Revolut” when Revolut has all of this 
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I said “looking at you Revolut” specifically referring to the “streamlined” part of my post. I find Revolut way too jumbled up and confusing as to where everything is. “A big mess” would describe it well for me.
I’m not saying Monzo’s design is perfect, there are still occasions where I am looking for something and not sure where to find it (payment limits for example), but overall I find it much easier to navigate than Revolut.
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Fairs.
You can adapt the Revolut app to how you want it, specifically the Home Screen which minimises a lot of it. I just wish everything was a bit smaller in the Revolut app, transaction tile is far too big, text included.
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Their social media seems to be made by work experience students with £0 budget, I think that’s fairly unique to this bank?
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It’s not as bad as Revolut’s, theirs is like a 5 year old is in charge of their social media posting about stuff not available to everyone or everywhere
Most of the stuff they post is EU/UK based…
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Revolut’s Instagram is leagues above Monzo’s professionally. Monzo is basically people filming stuff in the Monzo office with their phones, trying to keep up with TikTok trends.
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The additional security features on sending payments / transfer etc… i think is unique. How many people are aware of even use it is another thing.
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Were unique, Revolut just added similar
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*In some regions
True, but this post is in the UK Monzo Chat where it has launched
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Monzo have 14 million customers. Natwest have 7.5m retail. HSBC have 14.5m retails. Barclays have 20m retail. LBG have 28m across all their brands and including business customers. I would say Monzo are definitely up there.
Well, they were good up to the point a few years ago when they stopped updating them. The number of missing and out of date logos is only getting worse now. Not sure why Monzo have abandoned doing updates but it’s pretty annoying.