I imagine stuff like this would be built in Monzo time unless it proves to be profitable.
However, London is a city with a population of almost 10 times the current number of Monzo users + a few more million daily & weekly commuters. Building something which would be useful to people using London’s transport system could be very productive for Monzo from a growth standpoint.
Also, you’d hope that anything built specifically for London transport could also be extended to other cities and companies in the future.
In addition, from what I’ve seen, Transport for London tend to be more up to date with technology than most other cities in the UK and so some stuff might be possible with them but not currently possible with other UK cities or transport networks.
Examples of stuff I’m talking about: * Automated transport refunds for late trains. * Integrated railcards. * More detailed journey history. * Storing monthly/annual tickets on your card.
I think this is the best way to think about it:
Monzo regularily builds features which don’t help everyone in its customer base and as Monzo continues to build more specialised features this will happen more often. For example, a gambling block, joint accounts or savings pots are no useful to me at the moment.
However, these features aren’t useful to a load of people (just like integrated railcards for London transport), but a load of other people do find them useful.
It sounds like you are not in London so just as background, you can already use Monzo to travel on the London transport network and the daily, weekly and monthly caps are in place. The work here (that I believe people are looking for - I may be wrong) is to enable near instant notifications for public transport. The transactions are currently delayed by a day or so and this impacts your budgeting. I’d suggest it is not really about Oyster (that’s just the name of the card that nobody using their Monzo card to travel utilises anymore) but broader than that - public transport makes up a large portion of many people’s budget so it makes sense to provide features for areas that are key to people’s financial life. I was back in my small home town of Halifax during the xmas break and I saw the buses now take contactless. I suspect the updates on those buses won’t be near instant either. So if you could prove the feature to work on London transport you could export that to other places, both in the UK and abroad. See it another way - imagine Starling beat Monzo to the punch and had a great TfL integration before Monzo - that would see Monzo lose customers to Starling for certain. It could be seen as a defensive play.
Integration with email receipts should be possible, right? Use the Google API, or POP3 to check for email receipts, and then connect them to transactions in the Monzo app.
Take this one step further, and you could link flight details to transactions in the Monzo feed (I know there is some barebones booking reference number integration with some airline purchases, but this could work for all airlines). I would actually love that integration!
Unfortunately that would require TfL’s assistance. They once allowed Barclaycard to embed Oyster chips into credit cards, but that only lasted a few years.
However, TfL is desperate to move from Oyster onto contactless, so I expect that weekly contactless capping may extend to monthly and yearly at some point. At that point, you’ll be able to use your Monzo card instead of an Oyster card, and pay the same as your current annual travelcard.
Cutting that margin elsewhere would surely be a good idea for monetising the project. Would also be a nice eye-catching move too, I would guess bringing business in.
Blockquote Integration with email receipts should be possible, right? Use the Google API, or POP3 to check for email receipts, and then connect them to transactions in the Monzo app.
A lot of clothing stores give you the option to email receipt rather than print it! Also if receipts were digital think about the save on paper.
A-hem.
Ok this is why I believe Contactless Receipts would be super-useful.
If receipts had a standard protocol as email does, and my card chip provided the web-address for my ‘receipt box’, then:
Business Expenses would be a doddle
I would never loose a receipt! Ever (more power to the consumer for returns etc)
I could browse my assets list, possibly see my net-worth (-£)… which may prompt me to sell more stuff
Businesses could send me ‘assets’ such as coupons for loyalty etc
By the way, the ‘receipt box’ is the Monzo app in this fantasy.
i’ve been typing my email address into the tills as shops recently and I keep thinking ‘you’ve got my card details, don’t you know where to send this receipt already?’ I’ve also been thinking ‘i hate e-receipts, they are clunky and junk up my inbox’.
Perhaps a little phone call to izettles and Sumups for a bit of collab?
Loyalty cards (Boots Advantage card, subway, co op etc.) saved to your Monzo account and points get added automatically to your accounts with the different merchants
Dropping a few ideas here. Don’t like copying competitors only. Like metal cards, premium account, Banking as a service, … Although, necessary to catch-up with competition where necessary and value/customer demand exists:
Marketplace: Provide platform and integrate with 3rd party providers, Nutmeg, wealthfront, moneygram
More banking products: Mortgage, children accounts, family accounts, car loans (ride sharing/uber integration?), government bonds buying option
Lending: P2P lending, credit cards, payday loans, gift cards for friends & family
Predictions: Extrapolate income/expenses, advanced budgeting tools, provide money management tips based on past behaviour, provide benchmark of average of monzo users
Business products: Business accounts, payroll, bank guarantees
Crypto: (just like coinbase or Revolut): Bitcoin is here to stay, provide vault to store crypto, buy/sell options
FX: Multi-currency accounts, hold cash in foreign currencies, easy transfer between own accounts, euro/usd, etc banking details for receiving/sending payments (interesting for expats, migrants… (grab share from monese)
Investments: stock buying options (maybe 3rd party integration?), regular/standing orders to invest in ETFs, ISA integration (LISA, mortgage for first house)
Savings: Larger list of savings accounts (once interest rates rise it’s more interesting for people)
Payment options: use smartphone camera to scan barcode and make payment with monzo app (similar to wechat, alipay)
Additional services: Discount codes based on location from participating retailers, discounts/rebates based on past purchasing behaviour, buy 10 get 1 free type stuff
… and then sign you up to spam that you never asked for…
I legitimately cancelled a newsletter I received after a purchase I made within a store and then refused to use email receipts again in that store… I was later signed up after another purchase and the only thing to link me to the email address was the bank card I used to pay. I never gave it out on the second purchase and I won’t use the retailer again.
I would have chased it up if I had any proof of this as I’m sure it’s not legal.
Flux all the way for me, it’s great and doesn’t share your personal info with the store you purchase from.
Yeah totally agree with your concern. I would not want any unwanted emails. I was just mentioning the email receipt thing because it means that companies are starting to have till machines that offer digital receipts
But only for 4 retailers so far, and you need to give them API access to your Monzo account which makes me FAR more uncomfortable than some spam email.
