I’ve been using this service for while now and would say that this is an excellent platform to use.
I have been wondering has anyone pitched the idea of opening small high street branches across the UK?
For students, workers that’s receive their wages in cash or for small communities to help build their credit? Customers could promote the Monzo brand on their social media accounts taking pictures of the new high street banking service. Seems like it would be a good PR and marketing move.
Monzo does have plans to allow for cash deposits via a third-party (i.e. Post Office or PayPoint).
However, maintaining a branch network is quite costly. If you look at banks Monzo and Starling, you will notice the absence of a “fee schedule”. Thats bause, for Monzo, there are only two potential fees: 50p/day for an overdraft, and 3% on cash withdrawals overseas, with a fee-free limit of £200 within a 30 day period. Compare that to some high street banks, which, in addition to the fees I already mentioned, have “Unpaid Transaction Fees” (when a direct debit is more than your account balance, and it bounces), “Paid Transaction Fees” (when a direct debit exceeds your account balance, but the bank decides to honour it nevertheless, even when you don’t have an arranged overdraft), un-arranged overdraft fees, “Non-Sterling Transaction Fees” (for foreign transactions - online, at points of sale and at ATMs), “Non-Sterling Cash Fees” (for overseas cash withdrawls), etc.
The fact that mobile-only banks like Monzo tend to not have a branch network to maintain means that their operations are much more efficient, and they are therefore able to pass these savings onto us. So it is highly unlikely that Monzo will ever open up branches. If you are interested, I’m posting a link to a blog article Monzo recently wrote about this topic below.
In a small town close to where I live, Renfew, population approx 8000 there was apparent uproar because RBS had targeted their branch here for closure. - The bank closed on June 14th…
The whole scenario turned political with the SNP jumping on the bandwagon and basically blaming the Conservatives because of the governments stake in the bank.
RBS customers can use the local post office to do their banking.
Now, look at this picture from google…customers were being asked to go from one side of the street to the other!! Is this unreasonable? I don’t think it is. I certainly don’t think the uproar concerned with this particular closure is warranted at all…
In my opinion MONZO would be best off staying well clear of opening up on the high street nationwide, maybe the odd branch in London would be ok but is it really worth their while getting involved in all the rubbish that goes with being a high street establishment?
We fundamentally believe that the ability to control your entire financial life from your mobile replaces the need for physical location-based banking.
It also removes huge overheads and costs which allow us to put all our money into providing world class customer service and the most cutting edge features.
We believe that this approach is the right approach for the future of banking for the majority of people. For many people, the need to visit a branch is rare, and the reasons they may need to do this can be solved in other ways, such as partnering with the Post Office, or services like PayPoint, for depositing cash.
We believe that we’re on the cusp of a paradigm shift in banking whereby the drawbacks of physical branches outweigh the benefits.
