It provides a near perfect current / spending account for GBP use. Sure I wish there were some nice value adds which other services provide but I appreciate that a lot of that is niche stuff or just a desire for more perks (cashback, airmiles, benefits) which is purely self interest.
I just dont want to have any involvement than is more than legally necessary… I dont see this as any role for a bank. Provide the platform and stay out of peoples personal lives. If people make poor choices, its thier choice to do so.
I want a bank to be financial services, not social services.
I think this absolutely the bank’s business. The idea of corporate social responsibility - looking out for stakeholders - is hardly a new concept.
If you take the idea that a company should simply maximise it’s profits to the extreme then the company would end up with no customers because it’ll have ripped them off. If you believe that a business should maximise long term profits then you can absolutely justify this approach because it helps attract & retain users.
Either way, Monzo cares about it’s users more than other businesses, if you don’t like that they’re spending a relatively small proportion of their resources on this rather than you then there’s plenty of alternatives who don’t. The fact that the team has values like these is part of the reason why Monzo exists at all.
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Anarchist
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There’s no maybe about it. This is absolutely true. It is up to the bank to decide how to best fulfill this obligation, though.
Monzo is simply trying to fulfill the obligation in a way you seem to disapprove of. Whereas other banks do it in a way that others here disapprove of. The different models of behaviour can co-exist, serving their respective customers without either of them being right or wrong, surely?
So we take warnings off everything, and where someone has lost their life before for doing something, more people will die doing the same thing. Brilliant solution!
Theres nothing I factually disagree with in the content of your post… Its a free market and Monzo is free to pursue the route it wishes. To its success or failure.
The debate is around which route it should choose.
I would be far more interested in a bank offering cashback, or miles, or rewards for my use rather than any attempt to provide social functions. I suspect so would the majority of customers, if faced with the actual bill / reward offer.
There already are banks offering all them things, most of them don’t care about any social issues, it sounds like you’d enjoy more being with one of them. I’m not sure what you mean by “if faced with the actual bill / reward offer” because all those things are offered by other banks right now so the offer is already there. Monzo users chose Monzo, despite that offer being right there right now.
You don’t see how saying you want a system where mistakes are punished is offensive? Mental health is not something that can be controlled. Putting controls in that people can decide to use is a fantastic use of resources
I believe in freedoms. The freedom for a bank to choose the services it offers to its customers. The freedom for customers to make use - or not - of these services as they see fit. The freedom for a customer to take their business elsewhere if the bank doesn’t meet their needs.
These are things youwant not necessarily what the majority of the Monzo customers want. I couldn’t care less about those three things and would much rather support a bank that supports vulnerable members of society.
Monzo are a regulated bank, and the FCA quite rightly enforce banks to make an extra special effort with vulnerable customers.
The FCA has its own definition of a vulnerable customer, and there’s rules and guidance on how these customers must be treated. But a bank has to follow these rules and have processes created for vulnerability exactly like Monzo are describing.
Monzo would lose their banking license sharpish for not complying with the FCA’s rules, and that is bad for shareholders.
If you have a problem with that, I’d suggest lobbying the government to change the rules.
As far as we are concerned - the question isn’t whether banks have to provide extra support for potentially vulnerable customers, the question is whether they should.
And for us we absolutely believe that we all should. Very simply because it’s the right thing to do. We are building a bank for everyone. That we can all be proud to recommend to anyone that we’d meet.