I first heard of Monzo whilst I was with a friend about to embark on an adventure to Malaysia - I needed a travel card and my friend recommended Monzo. After first being reluctant - I ordered my pink coral card, I haven’t looked back since.
Monzo has by far provided me the best service, it’s features have made my financial life much less stressful and easier to manage.
I realised Monzo was onto something game changing when I attended the Monzo Event (where I was lucky enough to introduce myself to Tom and Eileen - cheekily asking them for an internship opportunity )
At this event, I got talking to a lady sitting next to me up in the balcony section and she had told me she was an employee at one of the major institutional banks and had been told to come and take notes to gain ideas on how to improve their provided services in app. This solidified my idea that Monzo would change the banking industry forever… and other banks would be forever trying to play ‘catch-up’
A few years gone, and a much unwanted pandemic later - Monzo has slowed its customer growth and there seems to be less discussion and ‘hype’ surrounding Monzo (from my experience) however, I still believe they have a lot of potential and I see them being a major contender with large institutional banks. I see them bouncing back strong at the end of this pandemic!
they are trying hard to become profitable and hopefully will come to offer more services such as Mortgages in the future.
To the team at Monzo - Thank You for creating such a great banking experience for me over the last 3 years that I have been a customer and I look forward to watching you expand and innovate further!
It’s a company that doesn’t deserve to fail in my opinion!
The technology it has bought to the banking industry and the way Monzo has made other banks get their act together and follow suit through disrupting the industry with innovative ideas and general user experience is truly inspiring.
This, IMHO, can only be a positive. The list of businesses who have crashed and burned in a spectacular fashion because they’ve focused too much on being discussed and (whether their fault or not) hyped to the hilt, instead of just focusing on the basics is a very long one. I’m not saying this is Monzo, but hopefully we’re firmly in a phase now where they’re just 100% concentrating on being the best they can be without a lot of the distractions that are completely necessary in the early days of building a business. That will how they continue to be worth the discussion and hype they have obtained to date.
I liked the post at first until there was a large screenshot of the money the OP has invested randomly dropped in the middle. I think this changed the tone I read it all in.
I have also used both and resulted in deleting Starling as I found the user experience to be second to that of Monzo!
But what’s great is that both banks are disrupting the industry and both deserve to succeed!
3 Likes
phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
13
The user experience of Monzo has become awful though.
The actual staff assistance is incredibly poor compared to both legacy and Starling.
The Monzo app has become a complete mess. The UI is all over the place, not to mention the random fonts, compromised sentences made shorter to fit the layout. Also the advertising in app for Plus/Premium, plus paywalling features.
4 Likes
Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
14
I agree. Monzo has the better app, in my opinion, but the banking experience with Monzo is poor in comparison to Starling.
1 Like
phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
15
Unfortunately every year I use Monzo it feels like it’s being left behind and legacies are providing the same experience with better support.
There’s nothing special about it now. Nothing I can see on the roadmap that excites me.
Even more so since the recent Plus adverts and paywalling.
The only thing I can think of is when they finally get round to incorporating other accounts into budgeting. At the moment the Plus ability of just being able to see recent transactions listed is crap.
If Starling release their credit card this year and budgeting then it’ll take a lot of Monzos business.
I wanted to post a long response elaborating on how much I used to love Monzo, how they got me into banking and finance and how I started to pay attention to my finances a lot more because of Monzo. Also about how it started to decline around the release of Plus v1, and how I don’t recognise the Monzo since then. But I decided against it so let this be a short summary of that
4 Likes
phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
17
Nothing public anymore since the Trello went, they haven’t blogged about anything for absolutely ages either. Occasionally you might see a makingMonzo tweet something.
Monzo is pretty dead atm. Covid has killed off any momentum it had left going into survival mode.
Yep. Monzo is still the best bank for me, and has the most useful day-to-day banking features for me.
None of the others are even close to the overall package Monzo provides. Starling’s UX is still an absolute mess, even if they’re slowly catching up on features.
I have an RBS account. Of the legacy banks it’s the app I have preferred the most - but there is always the odd niggle that makes me realise they haven’t fully caught up. Pasting in an account number is one that comes to mind.
For me, the Starling app doesn’t have a sufficient wow factor - and a lot of the banking perks referenced you can have with other high St banks. It feels like one foot in and one foot out. Not quite cutting edge fintech, not quite trusty BAM. It didn’t really fulfil a purpose for me, so I had rid of it and it was the same for my partner.
Imo best solution is to have a BAM bank and a Monzo/Revolut on the go in tandem. Revolut are able to recognise Cpas as recurring payments and have them paid from pockets. But I just tried my first DD with them and it came out with no appearance in any kind of feed. It’s all swings and roundabouts. A £1.99 cpa was also frozen . Monzo are far better for being trusted for day to day banking in this regard.
But I can see that for some people Starling is the best solution at meeting all factors. I don’t find the Monzo UI to be too cluttered bar the payee section, but maybe that’s just a personal taste thing.
2 Likes
Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
21
I’m not sure that it’s really a case of one or the other catching up. I think that both banks are heading to roughly the same place, but by slightly different routes.
At the moment, Starling do better on basic banking features, but if budgeting or a better UI is more important to you, then Monzo might be a better bank for your needs.
One day, one of the other will end up with a great UI, great customer service, free cash deposits, cheque imaging, incoming international transfers, and great budgeting features. Maybe they should merge! But until that time, having both works for me.
)
. Monzo are far better for being trusted for day to day banking in this regard.