So while I wait for my card to turn up, I’m interested to know how people are using their cards?
I typically use my credit card for online payment as it traditionally has been considered safer than using a debit card. So I’m hoping with the new insights monzo will give me (along with payment notifications & ability to freeze my card), that the card is safe to use in place of my credit card for online purchases (e.g. buying stuff from Amazon).
I think I’ll just start by topping up the card with enough to cover my general spend and see where we go from there.
I guess until sort code/account numbers are added I wouldn’t be able to get wages paid into the card even if I wanted to (which I don’t for right now).
I’d definitely recommend using your card for online transactions for the reasons you’ve mentioned. I could have avoided fraud from PingIt & Tesco users could have potentially lost less money when the accounts were breached, using those two features. Plus, Amazon only charges you for an order when it’s shipped so that notification is nice to have.
I’d recommend sticking with having your wages paid into your legacy bank’s account for now, as you’ll probably have direct debits to pay from there. You could set up a standing order to then transfer that money to your Monzo card if you wanted to though.
I use Monzo for all of my purchases now, my legacy bank account’s bank statement is just a list of transfers to Monzo
The features & things that I find Monzo most useful for are:
Targets which have been invaluable, in terms of giving me a sense of what my money is being spent on each month and therefore, what I need to buy less of and how much I’ll probably spend on each category in the remainder of each month.
The Pulse Graph - comparing the gaps between my top ups (which are always for the same amount & are supposed to be enough to cover my spending for a week) this month vs previous months, to get a sense of whether I’m spending faster or more slowly than usual.
The ‘live’ transaction feed, to see how much I spent last night, on a night out (so no dreading pending transactions, although it’s usually painful to see).
And of course not having to worry about exchanging money (& getting a terrible rate) before travelling abroad, as there’s no FX / ATM fees
To find out what features other users find most useful, it might be worth checking out the Monzo Love Tweets Twitter account which often shares tweets from users who’ve discovered features that they think are particularly great (as well as praise for the customer support team’s rapping skills)
And lastly, if you want to know more about Monzo, you might find this post useful -
I spend wayyy too much money casually. My monzo card has been a massive help, since I just top up what I should ideally be using and work around that. It also prevents me from overspending. The dissection of my spendings is brilliant too.
I use monzo for everything… the instant feedback is great and reduces my chances of being hit by fraud. My bank account is mainly a series of transfers to monzo now.
I use my Monzo card for all my physical expenditures, e.g. shopping, pub, travelling and so on. I still use my normal bank card for online transactions though. Still not entirely comfortable using Monzo online yet
I can imagine it is however I still feel more comfortable using my debit card for large purchases. When Monzo goes to a debit card however I wont have any issues at all
You do know that you’d still get the same protection by purchasing on a credit card then paying it off immediately. That way you don’t get any form of credit. It’d help you when it comes to getting a mortgage or loan.
While I agree that this is good, I’m not sure it necessarily makes the card safer to use. All the notifications to the user really do is close the feedback loop and make the time to fraud report quicker, rather than making it safer to begin with. Combined with excellent support and a couple more revisions of the apps in this area, they could make the process relatively painless though.
I’d say that actual safety features include the ability to freeze the card if it is not in your possession, the manual enabling of magstripe ATMs (still a surprisingly common method of fraud), pushing all transactions to be online wherever possible and the potential for Monzo to use their data along with modern technologies to build a Stripe-tier fraud engine.
That’s for plain fraud at least, the area where other non-debit cards are much safer than debit cards are with bad merchants of any type, charging incorrect amounts, double charging, not delivering goods, delivering faulty goods and/or exceptionally poor service. For these kinds of issues, I would personally much rather have somebody from American Express behind me than Monzo (Sorry!), even if I’d be paying quite a lot for the privilege.
This is a good point actually. As far as I knew, you were safer using a credit card online apposed to a debit card because of the additional protection with regards to purchases that have gone bad (either the seller didn’t provide the goods or someone used your card without your knowledge).
I’d be interested to know if Monzo (as they try to move towards being more of a ‘bank’) will look to offer a credit card to account for these very real concerns. Alternatively are they able to provide that protection with debit cards (once the Monzo card moves from prepaid card to debit)?
Otherwise I can’t help but think they will have a tough time competing with traditional Banks.
Thoughts anyone? Or anyone from Monzo who can comment further on this? Or is there a better channel to ask these types of questions?
Monzo’s definitely not going to offer credit cards (in the foreseeable future) -
The plan is to set up a marketplace bank, which will enable Monzo users to choose from a range of providers, to choose the solution that works best for them.
This is something that Tom’s thinking about (& asking for feedback on) -
The simple fact of the matter is with a credit card its the card companys money thats been hit, with a debit card its yours… And the onus is on you to get it back.
I have had visa card fraud happen… I have also had bad merchants… With the fraud I was phoned and the items didnt even make it to my statement, with bad merchants I simply showed visa that they had failed in whatever way and the bill was removed before it even became due.
I have had visa credit cards for years, never once have I used the credit part, I simply set them to direct debit my current account and forget about it… I avoid things like cashback or ATM cash advances as those have a cost. I really like my monzo card and account, but I have to admit a good credit card, one with a decent rewards system or linked into flyer programs, has a LOT of benefits for me that Monzo wont duplicate.
The real protection from a credit card is in the niche case of the merchant going bankrupt before shipping your purchase. A credit card must provide Section 75 refunds on purchases of over £100 (and under £30,000) for free.
Protection against your card being stolen/misused or from dodgy retailers is included with all UK debit cards, although it’s easier to handle dodgy retailers when using a credit card. Personally I’m happy to stick to debit cards, my experience with credit cards is that they tend to help obscure your actual spending and give you a lesser feeling of control over your finances.
@integralist Hi Mark so as @alexs mentioned we have no plans to offer a credit card once we launch current accounts. Mastercard Chargeback Protection is applied to our pre-paid card scheme and will also be the case for Monzo debit cards.
Chargeback protection covers claims for things like broken goods, failed delivery or payments to a company that has gone bust, similar to Section 75 for Credit Cards. The main differences being that Chargeback Protection covers any payments over £10 rather than £100, and the claim must be lodged within 120 days of purchase or payment for service. There’s an interesting article with some more detail in MasterCard Chargeback Protection here It is worth quoting something mentioned which is important to consider
"chargeback is closer to the purchase or delivery protection policies offered by credit card providers than it is to consumer protection under law."
It may well have been mentioned somewhere in this thread already, but one of the weirdly interesting things that has come from using my card has been buying lunch every day with it.
Watching the cumulative cost of buying lunch regularly from places nearby has been staggering and perhaps a bit scary on occasion…
But, it’s something that I wouldn’t really be able to see as clearly, were I using my other cards. So I’m happy that I have that knowledge!
I’m super excited to get rolling
so as 