iPhones have a ‘standard’ hardware feature set, so it is easy to code for a specific biometric service (FaceID) or PIN entry.
Android not so much. There are so many hardware variations, it is tricky to cover them all - but I agree - there should be a fallback from biometric to PIN when opening the app. If this is at all possible with all the ‘flexibility’ Android provides.
It doesn’t have to be a fallback! Just a setting! I have been round this loop more times than I care to count. All I get are endless excuses and diversions.
There is no reasonable excuse. Android does not vary so much that it is not possible to have a setting which allows you to select “Use PIN to secure App” and then require a PIN. Given that all the other banking Apps I have tried do it without any fuss. As someone with a heavy technical background I do know what I am talking about.
I think it is simply a misguided management decision not to do it for Android. There are no valid technical reasons at all.
Thank you all for your feedback. I also don’t’ keep much money in Monzo because of the lack of pin and fingerprint not consistently working. Rat_au_van suggested I hide my pot, but I can’t see an option for that. The only option I get is to “Lock this Pot”. (I am an android user).
Go to Help, type “Hide” and follow the instructions.
Yes, but that’s hardly secure. It doesn’t take much to figure out how to unhide a pot!
The trouble with all these responses is they try to avoid the simple fix that Monzo WON’T make, to provide a PIN to open the App.
If I need a screwdriver, telling me that I can use a coin, or a piece of bent metal or a wheelbarrow really isn’t helpful. I need a SCREWDRIVER!
In Monzo’s case I need a PIN to unlock the App. I don’t need lots of ideas that only partly work some of the time. All the other banks can do it so it can’t be that hard.
Your money is secure, you just want it to be private.
I don’t disagree. But the problem I was offering a solution to was how to hide a pot, not how to lock the app with a PIN.
Yet another diversion! Please don’t tell me what I want.
NO I want my App to be secure. And no, my money is not so secure if other people can potentially see what is there. One of the questions you get asked by a bank if you have lost your password/PIN (and that’s what a thief would pretend), is to detail recent transactions etc. These are not protected by Monzo.
You were, but Ruby’s original request was how to lock her account. She then went on to explain about her granddaughter being able to see her pot. If the granddaughter is bright enough to get into the App, I’m sure it wont take her long to find out how to see an unsecured pot. All you do is go to Help and type Hide. 
If security (privacy) is a big issue for you then you shouldn’t have bought an Android phone.
Your money is secure. I can see the Mona Lisa, doesn’t mean I can take it.
Your pin that you pin in to make a transaction is not in any way related to the pin used to unlock your phone. Your bank would never ask for this.
Sorry, you misunderstood me. I never said anything about the phone PIN.
The question the bank would ask (and this has happened to me many times) is what was the last transaction on your account, the one before… Monzo makes this sort of information available to anyone who has access to the phone.
On an Android device, when your fingerprint/face fails (not that you cancel it) what happens?
You can’t get in. You have to get them to send you an email to get back into the account.
As I said, I don’t disagree. Monzo could have the option to password or PIN protect the app, and I don’t know why they haven’t. Maybe they didn’t foresee unlocked phones being passed around.
I can’t really help any further as I’ve only ever used iOS, and if biometric ID fails, I have to use the phone PIN to open the app.
Biometrics is far more secure than PIN. How people can argue this is beyond me 
Unless my thumb is chopped off 
I have done! All the other banks I have tried have better security. Not only do the biometrics (fingerprint) work, but in the event of failure (or as an option in settings) I can use a PIN.
I’m still hanging in here for a bit because I am a shareholder and I bought into the original vision, although I’m beginning to wonder if that was a mistake.
And who has been arguing this?
Anyway you are wrong, the case is not yet proven.
In this specific instance you are doubly wrong. Every study into this has proven without a shadow of doubt that a working PIN is more secure than a biometric that does not work. It’s beyond me how anyone could argue to the contrary. 
Huh? 
