Feature Idea - Keep a spare card

[j06 (Jamie)]

How about the ability to have a second, non-activated card kept at home?

This is an idea that came from a pre-pay user wanting to keep their pre-pay account open after the full launch of currrent accounts. His reason was so that he could access funds should his current account card be stolen or lost. Got me thinking to another thread where someone had a spare pre-pay card that had been sent by mistake and never activated. This guy was offering it to travellers who needed a card quickly during the week where there was a card shortage, as cards are not tied to accounts until they are activated in-app.

So how about Monzo sends a customer a spare debit card which has their account number and name printed on it, but which remains inactive. If the customer loses or has their main card stolen, they freeze their main card, and contact Monzo who can then cancel the main card and bring the secondary card on stream. The customer then activates their card in the usual way as if they had received it in the post.

OK, so it would take some organisation as these cards would have expiry dates and could go out of date without ever being used, but perhaps this is a service that Monzo could charge a nominal sum for, say a fiver? Would be optional, and people could elect to request one if they did not want to have to wait for a new card to be delivered after reporting their main card lost/stolen. Should your secondary card expire unused, you can pay another fiver for a new one.

Revolut provide ‘spare’ cards, for a fee.

Any thoughts?

[anon72173902]

Would be good, discussed a few times

"Hot Spare" Card

I was thinking about Monzo, as I regularly do on a Wednesday afternoon, and I was thinking, If I had lost my card, card stopped working or I had some fraud take place on my card, I would need to freeze my card and then order a replacement. Although Monzo is very quick to get replacements to us, normally the next working day, I thought there may be situations such as being abroad or the weekend affecting these quick delivery times. Then it come to me, what if you received 2 cards in the post, on…

Two cards for one user

I think it would be great to have a spare card on the same account. I travel a lot and having my wallet with all my cards stolen when abroad is my worst nightmare. Often i’ll try to leave one of my bank cards in the hotel room in case this happens, but sometimes when in poorer countries the rooms have no safe and things get stolen from the room. Having a spare mondo card which i can leave in the room and block immediately if it’s stolen would be perfect for this!

[j06 (Jamie)]

Kinda proves Jamie’s Law of Fora that once there are a certain number of users, no idea is ever ‘new’

Thought I’d searched, but obviously didn’t look far enough.

[awn]

Seems expensive, pointless, and would only benefit a tiny proportion of people maybe once a year.

[j06 (Jamie)]

Which is why I suggested making it an optional, paid-for add-on. I certainly don’t think it’s pointless. It would be extremely useful when travelling abroad.

[henrydennis]

Another idea would be to tag it onto pots by having a virtual debit card for a pot. You could then add that card to Apple, Android, or Samsung Pay.

Also maybe team up with the group of banks doing emergency cash withdrawel or a similar solution.

[j06 (Jamie)]

In fact, thinking about it, Apply Pay updates with my new card details the moment I report my old card lost or stolen (certainly with Nationwide anyway) so perhaps my ‘feature’ is less needed anyway.

[andyredz (not an acolyte)]

When my prepaid card was retained at a toll booth my replacement card was with me 2 days later, a small inconvenience as nobody should rely on only one bank/card. This feature, whilst it may be useful in a very small number of cases, may not be worth the extra resources to implement.