I understand your concerns over hiding your phone screen from strangers. It makes perfect sense. In fact, it’s what I do all the time. I even hide my phone screen from friends and family 90% of the time.
I’m one of these people that doesn’t understand this.
Either my banking details - all of them - are private and I keep them to myself, or I don’t mind people knowing how much I earn.
In the first case I don’t show anyone my Monzo app. In the second, I do.
Why do you want to show people your transactions but hide your salary? (Not telling you you’re wrong, but trying to get my head around it).
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Slightly different use case but I’d really like to be able the option of hiding an incoming payment so it doesn’t appear in the pulse graph.
I recently had a very large sum of money come into my account, and then leave again which means I have a huge spike in my pulse graph with a pretty much completely flat line for the rest of the month.
I absolutely do want my transaction list to show an accurate record of what had been in and out of the account, but an option to exclude any transaction (incoming or outgoing) from all analysis tools (summary, pulse graph) would be very useful as occasional atypical transactions really mess these generally quite useful tools up.
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When I recommend Monzo to people, which I do a lot, I show them the app and the things in it. Seeing a snapshot of a few transactions isn’t a problem, but I would not want to show my incoming salary.
This is the main reason I haven’t switched to use Monzo as my main bank, and just transfer money over to it each month.
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I suppose we’re all just wired differently. If I’m recommending Monzo to the point of showing them the app, I’m not going to mind sharing my salary. If I don’t want them to know that I probably wouldn’t want them to see my purchase history either!
I’m fascinated that you’re really keen on Monzo - enough to recommend - but this one thing is the one that keeps you from going #fullmonzo.
No judgement, just fascinating everyone’s different emotional reaction to money (especially salary).
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I generally keep my screen private, but that’s mostly because of the Grindr notifications 
Couldn’t care less who sees my salary – it’s a matter of public record anyway – and generally would prefer Norwegian–style public access to everyone’s salaries, as this would be a major driver for equal pay.
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Several reasons:
- I want to split a bill with a friend who’s right beside me
- I want to add a note to a recent transaction or manage my pots and sitting next to someone
- I want to show someone how cool the monzo app is or show them how to use a specific feature
- I get money from a friend and want to say thanks but have someone next to me (office, transport)
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While I’m not sure if it’d cover everyone’s use cases perfectly, two ideas:
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Monzo could group more than a couple of payments on the same day from the same retailer and fold them into one feed item by default so you need to tap to see them all.
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In terms of the concerns @billinghamj brought up which I massively share, how about you sideswipe (on iOS at least), tap Hide Details, and it then replaces the retailer info with a generic “Card transaction” bit of text, and if you want to see what it actually is you need to tap it and enter your PIN/be authed by biometrics. Unsure if it needs to hide the amount as well, though it’d stand out less if it didn’t.
That way we get privacy for transactions when we want it, without a feed that is confusing, or with items that scream I’m Hiding Something to non-Monzo users (because it won’t look that different to other transactions), without messing with daily totals, or having to figure out a UI to then show hidden transactions later on (because you can just tap or swipe again to see/unhide them).
The other situation where can be an issue is when an organisation requires a bank statement from you for verification purposes. The stuff that James brought up (and others) are things that you would very reasonably not want on there a lot of the time, so my hope is that this would also be respected by default on exported statements.
The current way I deal with this is to use a specific separate credit card, or cash. Both of which are a bit crap to need to do when I’ve got a bank account run by smart people who get that banking is personal and people have different needs/challenges to deal with.
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Another use case is that I may want to hide a transaction from my partner if it’s a present or gift for her. I appreciate it’s my account and why would she look but I’d rather be safe than spoil the surprise. It could be she glimpses at my phone as I’m looking at Monzo.
For me the ability to hide from your list of transactions would be perfect, perhaps with a sub menu of hidden transactions.
If she goes hunting through the submenu then that’s her trying to find something versus falling upon the transaction by mistake.
What I think the best solution would be is to have a toggle on the summary, one that shows all transactions and a second that shows all transactions but can allows any item(s) to be dismissed.
The second view that allows you to dismiss can store the dismissals on the phone, so that it only has visual impact on that view. (although that wouldn’t help hide the engagement ring purchase)
It would really help cut down on the clutter; I often by things for friends and family and they pay me back, have card checks or just experimented with pots. Along with card checks, it really clutters up my view so I can’t see the important things I’ve actually spent money on.
I’m on the side of those who don’t see this as a good idea and I can’t wrap my head around peoples arguments that support it.
If this is what you want to spend your money on why do you need to be ashamed of this? Your bank account is personal and you can spend your money on whatever you like, so I think you’re showing your bank details to the wrong kind of people if they judge you for this.
After a couple of days it will be lost amongst all your other activities. If I had a surprise for my wife it would be silly to show her my recent transactions. I can’t think of a reason why she would want to look at them in the first place either.
I think you’d have to be sat on her knee and have that transaction on your screen paused for some time to be able to notice and read it.
Hiding transactions isn’t going to help your addiction, it would likely exacerbate it.
I don’t even know where to start with this statement 
These are not attacks on those that have commented and I understand that they may come across as being blunt but I don’t want this reply to grow any larger 
As mentioned I’m just struggling to see the need when it is simply a perfectly normal behavioural change/consideration that needs to be made by the user when wanting to expose their personal details to others.
As someone said earlier in the topic. Banking needs to be transparent so burying your head in the sand when it comes to certain transactions isn’t going to help anyone 
5 Likes
Surely an easy way to implement something like this would be to replace the merchant name with Hidden Transaction or something similar? That way it’s in the list if you want to refer back to it, but it’s not immediately visible.
The iOS app Twitterrific does something similar (ish) - you can ‘muffle’ users/keywords etc. Something still appears in your timeline, but it’s grey’d out/collapsed closed.
Why not give it a shot?
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I 100% agree with @o99. I demo the app to lots of people in passing, and having salary information in there makes me very uncomfortable.
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Haha sure 
I have loads of questions but we can start with these…
- How frequently are you doing app demos to warrant the extra steps you’ve taken to have your salary paid into another account?
- How do you get your salary into your Monzo account? Do you stagger transfers throughout the month drip feeding in a few hundred at a time to thwart the people you’re demonstrating to?
- A lot more in the past, now nearly everyone I know has moved over because of it, but even last week I showed it to someone at a meetup who was new to the country.
- I recently switched my salary, because of the decline in point one, but I am not sure I will leave it there, am just testing. The previous pattern was simply to move over my discretionary spending over for the month in one go, which is a much smaller amount than my main salary (no rent, utilities, savings etc).
Why is anyone embarrassed about others knowing how much they earn?
If you deserve it, own it.
If you don’t deserve it, deal with people judging your BS.
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For myself not a case of embarrassment.
If someone earns more than me then I don’t mind them seeing what I earn.
However, I know how (as much as I wish it wasn’t the case) when I know the exact figure more than me I can’t help but be aware of it whenever thinking about choices they make, things they value, etc. It’s simpler when I just guess they earn more than me, rather than having an exact figure. Which is completely unreasonable, but I think fairly common, and I would prefer not to be on the receiving end.
Edit: Also in terms of deserve: I work hard, would say I do a good job, but can’t say I add much more goodness to the world now working in tech than I did when working in customer service roles…
Second edit: So in all, just opens a can of worms I would prefer to have more control over showing - one solution being simply not demoing the app, one being not having my salary paid straight in, one being able to toggle the deposit amount showing, or having a ‘scramble’ demo mode similar to Emma.
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- Not as often as earlier in the year. But maybe once every 1-2 months at the moment. It’s not extra steps to have my salary paid into the account I’ve been using prior to opening a Monzo account.
- I transfer a portion of my monthly income to Monzo once a month by standing order. This is basically what’s left following saving, investments and household bill payments have been made (all automated by standing order or direct debit) from other accounts.
I told the missus i was home by 12 the other night but the monzo app is that little reminder that I lied to her and actually stayed out drinking until 4am because it shows me buying cigarettes from the all night garage on the way home. I might leave my phone unlocked and people root through phones. Is there no way I can delete this transaction from the app?