If you haven't moved over, what's stopping you from making Monzo your main bank?

I like the colour of the card, but tbh I don’t think you’ll get many people who will judge you because you have a bright card. I imagine most people are indifferent about things like that. If anything, they will probably be curious what bank it is

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  1. No statements
  2. No Apple Pay support
  3. Card acceptance

Overdraft. The £0.50 a day fee is unpractically high.

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Account limits. Sorry, but 10k total is not enough for some people around certain events.
International payments.
Payments via the app need to store references (I realise that is supposed to be in the works)

The rest is there (for me) and is an improvement over legacy banks.

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Monzo support can do this as a one-off when needed, I believe?

These usually cost a fortune, why would you use this instead of the far cheaper TransferWise service? I’ve used TransferWise a few times and it worked very well and was cheap. Is there something I don’t understand that I’m missing?

I agree 100%!

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When will people get that just because there’s an API it doesn’t mean that they solved a problem of having a web interface. Apart from seeing it on a big screen I already got locked out once of my account when my phone died and I couldn’t get a new one. We might be in the era of mobile but it doesn’t mean certain things are still not preferred to be done the old-fashioned way. When I sign up for a bank I don’t expect it to be a buffet, here’s an API, write yourself something.But like you said it’s not for everybody, I still like Monzo but understand why not having a web interface is a deal breaker for many…

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I understand it too, that’s why I said technically and it has serious limitations. I was proposing it as an option for some specific needs, not by any means suggesting its presence would meet most web interface needs.

There are a few reasons I haven’t totally moved over yet;

-Apple Pay (seriously this is a deal breaker, I go wallet free a lot these days);
-I have an AMEX, that not only also gives me instant notifications of purchases, supports Apple Pay
-No 3D Secure
-No Cleo integration (This AI is seriously great at helping me managing money it’s a shame it’s not supported yet)
-No statements
-No PayM (hoping Circle and Apple Pay Cash make this feature redundant though)
-No IBAN payments
-Pots are basically savings accounts with no interest (erm…inflation? purchasing power?)
-Weird US/international payments- the card works about 80% of the time in the US but there are many retailers that flag the monzo card in error. Not saying this is a problem of monzo’s but it is something that needs to be looked at. Almost all ATMs and retailers and in the Netherlands don’t take the Monzo Mastercard but happily take my HSBC Visa (why?)
-I took an overdraft out today to help with my credit score but I probably won’t use it. 50p a day is far too much to ask for a small loan.

-Confidence. This is somewhat of a controversial reason, but a lot of things keep changing meaning that my contract and understanding of bank-customer relationship is something I need to keep up with. For example, changing ATM fees, the trialing of the 50p overdraft.

I know it’s a lot to demand at an early stage but I’m more than happy to start using it as a main funding source when these features are eventually met.

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I know a fair bit about US payments, and I’d love to know details of what exactly is happening. I haven’t been to the US with Monzo yet, but there are a few common reasons for declines in the US:

  • Merchant attempts PIN bypass (just press enter at PIN prompt), issuer declines PIN bypass.
  • Contactless magstripe mode is used, issuer declines (Monzo says the CA won’t do this, though).
  • Incorrectly formatted authorisation message.

If you’re willing to share what shop, what terminal and what the entry method used was, it would be great to help identify where issues are!

As for the Netherlands, are the ATMs in question on the Mastercard ATM Locator?

I do love my Membership Rewards points, and their notifications through Apple Pay and Android Pay for all purchases are great. It’s not a current account, and it has its own downsides. I see them both as products worthy of space in my wallet and on Android Pay, rarely as direct competitors. I pay my Amex with my Monzo :slight_smile:

These are available now :smiley:

I’ve commented on this enough before so I won’t add anything, other than I’d just like to know - are you actually getting declines? So far, the only really solid issues I’ve heard of are Coinbase and merchants based out of Singapore. Most merchants that use 3-D Secure still allow cards without it to work, in my experience. I’d really like to hear the names of more merchants it is failing with. It might be an idea for someone to make a wikipost like this one, but for 3-D Secure acceptance issues? Merchants & Banks Who Don't Yet Recognise the Monzo Current Account Sort Code / Debit Card (open Wiki)

Of those banks that do charge, which one of them are cheaper?

You can still use an expired passport as proof of identity, though, can’t you? You just can’t travel on it.

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it is not accepted by most financial institutions if it had expired

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Correct - we can look at these requests on a case by case basis :slightly_smiling_face:

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Good to know, but for some of us, this is a fairly frequent requirement. Even though your in app support is great and generally responsive, I don’t want to ‘ask’ for permission each time I move my funds. I also sometimes have narrow time frames (investments), so I just want to click, click, click. No other bank account I have or know of has such limits. [edit: If I have misunderstood and you can change the limit permanently, please let me know - A daily account limit though does not make sense to me. Per recipient, if any is the norm]

Regarding the international transfers. I occasionally have transfers from abroad into my account. I did use transfewise a few times a long time ago, but for some reason, they closed my account and I could never get a response back from them why. They prevent further signups so I’ve never used them since, and would not now, given the lack of support I experienced. I know there are alternatives and I do use them. Sometimes though, I just want it to go to my bank account for small amounts. Even in sterling, I think this is not possible from abroad. At least, I looked for the numbers to effect such a transfer from a US co and pretty sure it was not supported at the time (this was a month or so ago) because the sender wanted more than just account number/sort code.

Because of the instant notifications and simplicity of using this account (I like the fact it is secure but simple and efficient, unlike my other bank accounts), I would like to use this as my main transactional account. Like others here though, I’m unlikely to leave significant funds in it due to lack of any savings return (perhaps you should start a savings rate account?), so I am likely to move funds around quite a bit. Can’t do that with the limits in place.

[edit: as a further thought - Although I think your completed platform with a few improvements is ideal for me, perhaps I am not ideal for Monzo! Perhaps we should ask who you see as your prospective users?]

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Simple: Lack of joint accounts.

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I tell you a short story about ‘that’ card and it’s colour. I was in Austria recently. Actually, I was travelling all over Europe, for which the card was fantastic btw - But I was paying for this meal in a restaurant in Austria and the owner told me he’d never seen a card like that before. I explained it was a new bank, online only etc. and thus fairly rare to see. Oh, he said. I thought it was a ‘gay’ bank… (said the man in Lederhosen! :slight_smile: )

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£10,000 https://community.starlingbank.com/t/high-value-bank-transfers/1329
£20,000 What are the payment limits?
£25,000 Payments and transfers | Banking online | Lloyds Bank
£50,000 Is there a limit to how much money I can send in... | Barclays

For standard accounts at least (i.e. not Premier). Perhaps you are ideal for Monzo, but as a secondary account?

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Thanks for that. Not sure about Starling as I know little about it, but think it’s a startup like Monzo. Anyway, as for the others, the fps limit is usually per transaction, not per day as per Monzo. On top of that, the limits you state here are lower for the web app for security reasons. You can usually make bigger transactions (much bigger) via their own web sites or via telephone/branch. No such alternatives exist for Monzo as they only have the app. So, ignoring Starling, the at worst limits are 2-5 times that of Monzo’s and they offer alternatives such as their own web site/telephone banking for much larger transactions. I would say that on my own accounts, via the banks websites (I tend not to use their ‘apps’), I don’t have any issues and if I do, there is an alternative already in place for me to use. Monzo already stopped me in my track s a couple times. I won’t harp on about it anymore, but for me (and others), Monzo should realise this is a severe limitation. I posted the comment here as they were asking for the reasons people had not fully adopted the account and this is my experience to date. I do love the tech. I want to use it, but it requires a few more tweaks to fit to my needs.

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As per the links, those are all daily limits of online banking. Natwest is the odd one out, they have a lower limit for telephone banking. But yes, in-branch would probably offer more.

But maybe down the line Monzo will be able to offer higher limits though; I would guess as a starter bank and being a bit risk-averse means these lower limits are in place…

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Good to know. I have several other accounts (I won’t name the banks, but they are all UK mainstream banks) and I have not encountered the same issues, even via the web app (Clydesdale for instance). I guess we shop around until we find what fits our needs the best (which I think is what this thread is about).