Hey…having seen your new newsletter with where you are on becoming a real bank it got me thinking. When you do become a full bank and my salary starts diverting into my Monzo account will I get a notification that that’s happened like I do when I spend (and I think I do currently when someone sends me money) and what about Direct Debits? Will each of those get notifications as that could maybe be a tad annoying as I have 90% of my direct debits go on the same day so I could wake up to like 20/30 notifications on screen…
Good question I think the short answer is that we’ve yet to figure this out, but there are lots of opportunities for us to be intelligent. Personally, I’d love to know when my salary has been paid in , but for bills, I’m only as interested when:
when I set up a new bill payment
when a monthly charge is way out of line with its historic pattern (ie. if my electricity bill jumps up)
I love that monzo are so honest about these things saying when they don’t have a full answer!
Yes I would like to see intelligence in it if you think that’s an option as you say you don’t want to see it if it’s just a normal outgoing that was inline with its pattern.
I’d also love to see that customisable if I get a notification for my salary although maybe difficult in my employers case as the company name they seem to use for each pay slip changes every month and I’d imagine you would do some sort of name check to stop that.
It would be nice to have the granularity for each direct debit to allow notifications or not. I would quite like to know when my mortgage payment is completed for example. After while though, I would likely follow @oliver’s way of thinking.
Enabling ‘Do not disturb’ mode would solve middle of the night payment notifications disturbing people. Im not sure, but isn’t there a way to aggregate notifications? I think i’ve seen it in other app notifications that show something like ‘xx unread messages’, instead of showing all the individual messages.
This is definitely the most excited I have ever been about direct debits.
As Monzo must know what type of transaction it is maybe customers could have some tick box selection of which they want notice about and which they don’t?
e.g.
BACS Credit
SEPA Credit
Card topup
Direct Debit
Chip & Pin Sale
Chip & Pin Refund
Contactless
Online
Personally I would love to see full notifications on what is happening on my account - perhaps some (tightly restricted!) IFTTT integration would be useful in this scenario.
If Monzo get to the full bank status and run the account the same as the pre-paid card version currently runs I can see the main banks clammering to keep up!
I think iOS does auto-aggregate now you mention it. I’m not worried about them waking me up as much as I just don’t want loads of notifications
Could be interesting to see what happens though as well with ApplePay as they already send a notification could you end up with duplicate notifications when spending.
I’ve think I’ve started a whole brain dump on notifications now
Unfortunately, iOS does NOT auto-aggregate.
Hopefully, they will have the courage to add it in iOS 11.
EDIT: just noticed notifications can be aggregated at an app level, just not at iOS level.
E.g. I just got a single alert about 5 pending reminders from reminders.app.
I definitely like the idea of granular controls over notifications! I can see too many notifications being annoying for some people, but I’d love to be notified as soon as money goes into or out of my account - knowing exactly where I stand with my money is an incredibly satisfying feeling.
Yeah… I want to know any time money moved in my account… Direct debit?? Fine takes a second to acknowledge it and only I know if thats about the right amount…
Yes it’s very refreshing. I hate it when you’re trying to have dialogue with an employee of a company and all you get back are corporate 1 liners and vague non-useful responses. It’s fine to say “we don’t know yet” or “it’s not something we’ve decided on yet” and that is an answer in itself. I wish other company representatives would be more…human.
Regarding late-night dings on our phones, there could be additional setting:
[ ] Ding at all times
[ ] Only ding between Xam-Ypm (9am-9pm as example, but never default, as users work in various time hours)
[ ] Never ding
on top of enabling/disabling specific notifications based on company. Thing is, some payments are processed at weird times and I couldn’t possibly know all of them.
To me, that feels like tipping the balance between complexity (more settings) vs benefit. As Michael mentioned, do not disturb mode covers late night notifications. And at the end of the day, the transactions will still be in your feed for you to view, even if you don’t receive a notification.
Yeah, also, surely an app should be trying to notify you of important things. If you don’t want disturbed, the phones themselves have “do not disturb” modes. I would be happy with Monzo not having any notification limiting settings and for them to just send me everything relevant.
I don’t think many settings are needed and aggregating creates a ton of non-obvious problems. Remember that opening the Monzo app on iOS at least clears all Monzo notifications automatically.
Both platforms Monzo is developing for have timed do not disturb features. If you don’t want late night Monzo notifications, you likely also do not want late night Twitter notifications for example.
Where Monzo could expand in this problem is in sending “non-live” transactions and informative notifications as silent notifications. These don’t make noise or even light up the screen but are available to see the next time you pick up your device.
For example, I don’t need to know in the moment when a standing order or direct debit goes out without issue and hasn’t triggered any other warnings (low balance, etc) but I do still want to be told about it the next time I look at my device.
Same with regular income, I need to be told at some point when it has come in but do not need to be interrupted. A payment from a friend is worth interrupting me for though.
The furthest I would personally go is in soft muting merchants. Telling Monzo that I don’t need to be told that Netflix/Spotify/etc. has billed me again this month for exactly the same amount as they always do.
Do not disturb system wide doesn’t eliminate the problem as I don’t want to know a DD has gone out at 1pm for example but have to have my phone on DnD to not get that notification and lets look at the fact the notification still comes through it’s just sitting and waiting for me to notice instead of an active alert.
You’ve also said all “relevant” notifications and what is relative to you is not necessarily relevant to me and this post has proven that I think. I think customisations is definitely necessary I guess it’s just to what level
I was replying to the general idea of people suggesting a variety of different scenarios with a number of complex options in the settings of which one included the “I don’t want to wake up to lots of notifications” scenario, that is why I introduced the idea of phone’s “Do not disturb”. Also precisely why I chose the word relevant, if Direct Debits and other minor, expected transactions with no other effects on the account don’t need the notification then they don’t.
If Monzo want to offer that amount of user selectivity a simple “enable notifications for second-level* transactions” will sufice, anything more is overkill.
I think the short answer is that we’ve yet to figure this out, but there are lots of opportunities for us to be intelligent. Personally, I’d love to know when my salary has been paid in 
, but for bills, I’m only as interested when:
