Out of interest, what sort of FD customer service have you generally required, that’s prevented you moving to Monzo?
Direct communication with a UK call centre when needed - albeit this has slipped recently and calls have taken longer to answer, over the years we’ve purchased a few properties including one at an auction and due to a delay in monies moving (my issue to be fair as timing was slightly out) they sorted the issue instantly as an example. I’m sure Monzo would be just as good and to be fair my wife and 2 daughters both have Monzo accounts now along with 4 of my friends I’ve introduced and I haven’t moved due to an issue with Monzo note to do with FD not doing anything wrong…misplaced loyalty maybe but always had a great service from FD. I also have first directory which I would replicate with the Monzo plus but that seems to have stalled at present (when I last looked anyway) I’ve been an early investor from the early days with Monzo investing three seperate times …was also a beta tester from early days too.
May yet move to Monzo fully as I’m aware as a bank they need proper customers but I have been and still am very happy with FD at present
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I’ve got an Offset mortgage with FD, which means that my current account balance is earning notional interest every day, so it’s not in my interest to move my main current account to Monzo. From a services perspective, the thing that’s stopping me are international services - I receive non-sterling cheques and have to transfer money to and from other parties in the EU and elsewhere. Given that Monzo still seems to be inefficient with sterling cheques, I’m waiting for the international services to grow a bit. I don’t want to ask my counterparties to start sending money through TransferWise or similar so until Monzo grows a bit I’m staying with FD as my main current account.
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It did occur, I hope it’s not that limited! I’ll get in touch with them and see what the official line is…
Never understood why they got rave reviews - online banking was about a decade out of date when I last used them.
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The online banking has never been great, it made its reputation in phone banking. Back in 1989 when it started, it was revolutionary to be able to phone up at any time to pay bills or make transactions - and the people at the other end of the phone were friendly, chatty, knowledgeable and efficient. I remember calling in the middle of the night after I’d gone in after a big night to pay my credit card and I got a call back the next day saying “you seemed a little -er- tired last night, we just wanted to check the transaction”.
These days of course online banking does 99% of what needs to be done on a regular basis, and it’s fine for that. I only call them maybe once or twice a year, and that’s usually because I have something international to do, or need information about my mortgage.
I’ll see what happens as FD evolves, and maybe when my mortgage is paid off (not that far away) and Monzo gets its international side in order, I’ll consider switching. But although I’m a fan of Monzo, it’s not yet where it needs to be for me.
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When I had my FD account, I once call them at a couple of minutes past midnight on New Years to say happy new year … was a little drunk at the time.
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I’d have to respectfully disagree
I was with them before going #fullmonzo and I thought their banking app was actually quite good. For me the review I gave was good because that, plus their customer service is still yet to be beaten.
When they get instant transactions and budgeting I’ll likely go back because the one thing that I dont like about Monzo is that the chat is what it is.
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That’s invasive and horrifying.
And to be clear I’m not talking about telephone banking in 1989 but the surveys from the last years and the atrocious online banking product from this century.
I’ve never used their banking app and nor would I. I was talking about their online banking.
TBF, that was also really good and the best of any “trad” banks I’d used. If Monzo were to do a full Web App, they could do worse than look at it.
Again, your mileage may vary
What was positive about it for you?
All I remember was ugly bad 90s UX, awkward navigation, zero CSS and invasive but basic javascript.
No, it wasn’t. Compared to where banking was generally at the time, it felt like a friend phoning up to check I was OK. I can’t explain it, but dealing with FirstDirect at the time genuinely felt like phoning a friend to ask you to help them out with something. When I need additional services that I can’t do through online banking, I still enjoy phoning FD in a way that I don’t enjoy having to express my problem in a limited number of characters through online chat and then waiting an indefinite period of time for a response. If something goes wrong with my account, I have an enormous amount of faith that a person will help it get fixed. Anyway, I’ve tried to explain why I like them, you don’t, that’s fine, we disagree.
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I’ll agree that when I first joined them around 2016 what you said was what I saw too.
However, I felt it improved massively towards the end of 2018, better UI, some twitches but I could see it was being updated regularly and getting better with each passing month.
It’s one of the things I miss most about legacy banking, sometimes I just don’t want to do it all on an app.
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That’s good to know. Yeah it was definitely before 2018.
That’s precisely why I said it was invasive and horrifying. That level of presumption is the last thing I want from a bank!
I guess you would’ve hated it if banks were still like the old days where branch managers actually met and had relationships with their customers, then. Before computers came along and automated everything, you used to have to meet them fairly often in the course of managing your banking.
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Nothing wrong with a professional relationship with your bank. That’s the polar opposite of what happened here which was prying into your personal life which would have been equally as inappropriate then as now.
Quite right. We agree to disagree. You can say as much as you want that you were happy – likewise this definitely is unwelcome prying and would make me leave a bank without hesitating if it ever happened. My personal life is never the bank’s business.
I was quite happy that they did so, given that I had completely forgotten the following day that I had made the payment and could well have made it again. Remember, this was at the time when there was no easy way to see what was happening in your account between monthly statements and unlike sending a cheque (the way most bills were paid), a telephone transaction did not deliver a receipt or cheque stub. Anyway, as I said, you’re not a fan, I am, let’s agree to disagree. They weren’t prying into my personal life, they were validating a transaction which had been flagged up by their internal processes as requiring additional authorisation.
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Things changing for fd finally - latest Fintech Insider podcast has this - not heard it myself yet but in the show notes:
HSBC plans First Direct relaunch to compete with digital rivals (08:45)
Can’t wait to try this out 
First Direct are making some improvements but it still looks to lag behind Monzo somewhat…
https://www1.firstdirect.com/news-and-updates-for-customers/
I should add that my app has not been updated and I can’t see a new version in the app store yet
Literally only use my app for making transfers to Monzo, pretty much 
Mine hadn’t been updated last I looked. Hopefully the update doesn’t break anything. If I’m forced to dig up my password, memorable data, other piece of memorable data, other other piece of memorable data, etc to reregister it then I might cry 
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