Ok Vik
Is there anymore news on the automatically sweeping leftover balance on payday into a pot?
Really like this idea and did try to see if an IFTTT could be setup to do something similar but doesn’t look like it.
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Monzo felt slow in the early days, too. Their ios app was built by 1 developer. I joined in March 2016 and only got to use an android app and get my hands on a mondo card in September 2016 (6 months waiting to even use any sort of product).
I think Freetrade is at a stage where you can count the developers on the fingers of one hand. I’m sure if they are successful they will keep growing and become something like Monzo (who now have 100+ devs afaik).
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It makes sense for Monzo to provide stocks & shares trading themselves in the Monzo app to use as an additional source of revenue.
Personally I think Monzo’s ethos, their more prominent brand enabling them to attract better devs and their larger customer base would lead to a more satisfying and better overall experience.
I do think Freetrade are doing a great job at the moment, I just think fully integrated Monzo-built stocks & shares trading would be better.
They do have an Android app now. I’ve got it. It’s only a waiting list at the moment, but it’s there. I’m surprised to hear that you’re being told you’re being removed from the waiting list. I can only presume that’s because they’re moving the wait-list to being controlled by the app, so you need to have used that to claim your place. I can only guess that either you haven’t used the app, or you have but you haven’t managed to properly link it to the email you joined the waiting list with?
Freetrade’s Android offering at the moment is precisely the same as Monzo’s Android offering was when I first signed up. I had to wait I think five months after first signing up before I was able to actually open my Monzo account.
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Figure out what the customers’ specific financial goals are, and then make those goals more directly the goals of Monzo.
Pick a common personal financial goal (e.g. “x months of expenses in savings”)
Now create an opt-in program for people to achieve this goal. Maybe have an up-front planning wizard (category pots would help here) and then use nudge theory / gamification to keep people on track.
Make heavy use of existing data on people’s financial habits - for example, if you take one particular segment of customers and split it between ones who have savings and ones who are constantly in their overdraft, can you learn anything from the behaviours of the first group to build evidence based interventions for the second group?
Then, A/B test a whole bunch of interventions. Do different interventions work better for different customer segments?
If this works, then spend some money on billboards to tell everyone that x% of Monzo customers who sign up for this program have y months of savings after z amount of time.
This idea plays directly to the overall Monzo vision, and it leans hard on the strategic advantages Monzo has - rapid development, engaged customers, and fat piles of customer data. Also it sounds like a super fun thing for engineers to work on!
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Issue a Monzo payment ring (I know there’s a thread on this elsewhere). The Kerv (now K-Ring) have small pre-paid MasterCard chips embedded in them, but they lack the iOS App and banking smarts to back them up. It would mean you’d have to implement duplicate card functionality (something that others have asked for), and yes, there are some heightened risks associated with loss as the rings are not cheap, so we would have to pay for the rings (and replacements), but I’d totally rock a dark Monzo ring, emblazoned with the M (and Hot Coral on the inside of course), what better way to show off your brand loyalty to those in the know 
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And call it the Ming 
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+1
Even if they can’t / don’t have the desire to develop their own ring (which, with hot coral core would indeed be 
) they could partner up with someone like K-Ring or Oura to offer payments support (Oura don’t currently have payments).
Becomes a question of what the market size for wearables is, given there’s another thread on here about not pursuing Samsung Pay.
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Here’s one for being outside the box
We could write a Diary in our notes section of a payment for occasions such as days out/memorable meals etc and include a hashtag #diary
Then Monzo could send you a ‘on this day’ notification the following year so you can read all those fun memories.
Simple to do, but will bring back fantastic memories
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I think I’ve seen this idea put forward in a thread previously but a Lottery Pot would be awesome! Anyone with Monzo can pay into it and by paying into it (say minimum of £1 a month) gives you the chance of being drawn out at the end of the month to win the pot! Similar to NSANDI. I think that with the community Monzo has this would be really fun. (again this was suggested by someone else elsewhere so not my own idea).
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I think this is a really innovative way of thinking about the mortgage market - however, how would deposits be handled? Or would no deposit be needed?
Also if the young professional loses their job and therefore has no salary to have the 25% taken from does it automatically default and then left homeless?
I’d guess the deposits would be the same as normal - you need a minimum of say 10%
Well from a consumer point of view this is exactly what you wouldn’t want to happen. You’d want Monzo to take some of financial risk of not having repayments for a period of a few years say, while that person got back on their feet
France already has mortgages that work a bit like this…
“One interesting fixed-rate mortgage product is the so-called flexible mortgage. This product provides the security of a fixed interest rate but allows borrowers to vary their monthly payments based on their individual cash flow circumstances. Typically the lender will set upper and lower payment limits, but in some circumstances payments can be suspended for up to two years or increased as much as 30% for a more rapid payoff.”
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It was just a thought - because being honest the actual payments in my mind is not (currently for me) the difficult prospect its the stumping up of the 10% deposit - so while innovative for me at least currently I still couldn’t touch it at the moment.
This is interesting - I suppose it is just a higher risk for the company to be having to front the non-payment of the consumer but the idea that it is hopefully balanced out by the uplift in salary.
I think for Monzo it would be slightly too risky - but maybe something that they offer once they are profitable - I do like the idea and think it could work for a select consumer though.
For sure, it doesn’t solve the tricky problem of saving for a deposit.
Might be worth checking out the Government Shared Ownership scheme if you’re looking to get on the housing ladder with a lower deposit: What is Shared Ownership? | Share to Buy
Yep exactly - so you’d expect Monzo to put a higher interest rate on this sort of mortgage to compensate for the higher risk
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Although not on the property ladder as yet (I’m only 22 but saving) I work within the realm of Mortgages. I’ve looked into the Shared Ownership Scheme and its not something I’m willing to sacrifice - I’d much rather get a 95% LTV mortgage with a higher interest rate and then switch after the fixed term - sacrificing equity to me just isn’t an option (but I can definitely see why it is appealing).
Definitely - I just think that if/when Monzo break into the mortgage market they should start off with a more “traditional” product first - building up to something like this!
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Mmmm maybe Monzo could invade Iceland? That’s a new idea.
Do you the shop or the country? 
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In fairness I seen Iceland (the shop) have trialled those plastic bottle recycling machines.
1 bottle = 10p off your shop, thats pretty neat and id love that to be more widely adopted!
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