Just a thought, but how easy would it be to offer in-app purchases to switch on extended functionality?
For example, Monzo could offer a basic CA app; but then charge say £x to switch on the Targets feature; £x for the Pots; £x for Monzo to Monzo payments, etc.
This way people pay for what they need and Monzo make some £ in the process. A one-off fee to unlock all the “features” would be money well spent in my opinion.
Why would Monzo want to use in-app purchases (from which both the card networks and Apple take a cut) when they can just take it from your account?
As far as one-off payments are concerned I would expect that most paid features would be to cover recurring costs (foreign ATM withdrawals) so from a business perspective a one-off payment wouldn’t cut it.
I wouldn’t pay to be honest for that. They are meant to be a bank of the future and showing that banks can be useful to be a bank with no additional value for free makes them no different to anyone else in the market.
Agreed.
There are competitors out there who already offer these extended features for FREE
Not sure how it would make money if customers migrate.
I have an account with one of those rivals and am already enjoying fee-free piggybanking.
I just think it is a way to potentially make money and if people value the features they would make a one-off payment.
I’m sure some would, but how many? Others will just return to the bank account they came from once the differentiating factors are hidden behind a paywall.
This would be totally against Monzo’s aims?
The whole idea is that Monzo is a banking app to improve everyone’s ability to make good financial decisions. Charging for functionality that is core to their mission just dilutes the product.
It is a difficult one.
So far, Monzo plan to make money through overdrafts - I never use an overdraft and therefore they won’t be making any money from me on that front.
Maybe I will use the marketplace and change my energy supplier in the future and Monzo will make some money, but maybe I won’t.
I’m a customer that will cost Monzo money and they may never make anything from me. To be using a service and a feature-rich app for free, is good - don’t get me wrong, but sometimes people are prepared to pay to get “better options” and I’m just suggesting that a minimal fee to have better options could (would) be money well spent.
Why? How do you think legacy banks work? They lend the money you deposit to other people - whether you yourself use overdraft is irrelevant, many will and will essentially use your money for a fee that Monzo gets.
Thats why so many banks make a loss…
You’re joking, right? Most banks make huge profits.
Banks make a loss when they lend to people who obviously can’t pay back, or invest in wild speculation. A lot of banks started playing russian roulette and failed to notice the bullet before it was too late…
Monzo isn’t doing any of those things (I hope)… They still have an enormous amount of deposited money to play with and ample ways to make money by overdrafts or safe investments.
I think Monzo wish to challenge conventional thinking.
Actually with fractional reserve banking and NIRP / ZIRP thats not really how it works…
The miss conception of banking is that you deposit money, and the bank lends it… When in fact the bank creates it based on reserves.
Thank you!!!
We need to get these misconceptions cleared up to improve and fix the banking industry
Is it really a misconception? I’m not an economist but is what @crablab wrote really that inaccurate?
I thought fractional-reserve banking was exactly that: Banks have to reserve a fraction of your deposit as required by regulations and can lend/invest the rest. Money supply increases by virtue of the fact that depositor is not locked out of his money and the bank has a duty to honour his deposit. We can get into all sorts of arguments:
*Philosophical, what is money? A load of numbers on computers?;
*Semantics, is money really “created” or is it just accounted for twice? Would the creation of a negative credit not offset the “creation” of this money.
Ultimately what he said in response to the comment he was replying to within the context of this topic: That monzo will make money from your deposits even if you yourself are not paying fees, is as accurate as needs to be.
I would argue that money is not created, and that crablab was 100%, money simply isn’t there as is evident by the fact that banks will go bust (or require rescuing) and be unable to honour our deposits if we were all to simultaneously try and withdraw our money. As has happened in depressions.
No. That would actually instantly alienate me from their brand. Money is not a game.
Neither am I. If what I have written is a misconception, I apologise but I wouldn’t say it is devoid from the lay persons view of banks.
Well, the bank does create the money through fractional reserve banking.
If I deposit £100 and the bank then lends out £90 (keeping a fraction back) I still have access to my £100 and someone else has access to a further £90. The bank then wants it back plus interest which it never created.
If that person defaults on their £90 loan the bank will get into trouble since they cannot reconcile their balance sheet.
This won’t matter to the individual but is exactly the reason we can have trillions of £ of debt and not enough money in the economy to pay it off
Because that money doesn’t exist, nothing has been created.
Exactly, money is not created 