So these countries have ATMs but no working postal system? Seems odd.
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Bit odd to say that tbh. Why would you say such a thing? It seems to me you don’t actually have any experience about what you are talking about? Would that be fair?
It’s not really odd at all. In fact, it’s quite normal for there.
Welcome to most of the world outside Europe and the global north. It’s pretty nice if you actually go there.
Where have you been that doesn’t have ATMs? They are much MUCH more widespread in my experience in dozens of countries where there are rarely residential addresses let alone a postal service.
Up front disclaimer: I’m not working on this but I do work on our physical cards and the backend of producing and sending card orders to our suppliers.
A couple of points here from me:
- The discounts are not quite as good as y’all seem to think.
- Our suppliers are continually surprised at the countries we send cards to and the number of international card orders we have. It is not normal for a UK bank to provide this kind of service at this frequency to all customers.
- It’s an extremely manual process compared to normal card orders. There are more costs than just the raw courier cost.
- We send a lot of cards internationally that never get activated and a lot where people don’t actually need them.
- We provide this particular tier of courier service on the basis that if you are in a position where you need a Monzo card sent internationally, you likely need that card as soon as possible and cannot wait for the multiple weeks that the cheaper air mail may take (we used air mail in the prepaid days and it took far too long to be useful to the vast majority of people who needed it).
I know this sounds harsh but it’s an extremely expensive service to us (I can’t disclose the exact contents of business deals) that some people use more than their fair share of. We have the choice of charging for this specific service, or introducing charges elsewhere to cover these costs.
I may not personally fully agree with some of the implementation details (and it’s totally fair to comment on that!) but it’s hard to get away from the reality of the situation with just how much international card deliveries is costing.
Our very first current account debit cards begin expiring soon. 
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Really useful post @Rika
I read/imagined somewhere that posting a card to a user costs Monzo £2.50 (I’m sure I read it but I could have imagined…)
One way to look at it, if £30 is the ‘neutral’ cost for International Couriering, i.e. no profit, then at 0.48% of cards replaced, the standard card replacement has to cost <£0.60 (if my maffs is correct). So I imagine there’s still some loss involved at £30.
In any case - I’ll stop re-ordering a new card every time I leave the country. Sorry bout that.
Exciting Milestone!! Is there a standardised timeframe which a card is valid for set by Mastercard, or can you make it anything you wanted?
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Also @rika - please can you do a weekly post with Random Facts About Card Manufacturing.
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This is a good question… all my cards are valid for either 3 years or 5 years. Is it the issuer that chooses that?
I don’t think anyone who has commented has a problem with this charge 
I can’t say the exact number but very low single digit £ is vaguely the right ballpark for a standard plastic card in our standard packaging, produced and delivered. We do spend a little more on this than most banks as we get the nicer paper, envelopes, and so on.
3–4 years is strongly recommended to us but we may revisit this, particularly for the more durable cards such as metal.
Fact is, most cards don’t make it to their expiry date while still being in use. Over 3–4 years of use, you’re far more likely to lose or damage it.
Perhaps. 
I should do these posts more often. I don’t get nearly as much time as I’d like to nowadays.
Yup, I’m just getting ahead of those arguments. We’ve already done our work on the calculations and re-negotiations, a £30 charge is about right. It’s not a profit-making decision, it’s charging for what is currently a deeply loss-making service for us.
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It is £2.50 for mainland UK.
There should be a cheaper 1st class option for those abroad long periods of time.
One feature which could lessen the pain of the fee would be the ability to add a card to Apple Pay / Google Pay etc. without the physical card.
One thing that bothered me about US card companies is if I needed card dispatched to an alternate domestic address they would only post it FedEx / UPS. Fortunately it was free, however a big waste of money.
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That would definitely be useful, though it wouldn’t really help in the countries that haven’t really taken to contactless/mobile payments. It might’ve changed since then, but I was surprised at how many shops in California (SF/Daly City area) didn’t take contactless.
Samsung pay works on non contactless machines, so if they get that set up then great.
As contactless gets more and more popular around the world they should definitely be allowing people to add replacement cards straight away.
Currently as a workaround you can add it to curve and then use Samsung pay.
This is only true for cards issued in the US (and one other country I forget at this time).
As for adding replacement cards to Apple Pay and Google Pay before you receive and activate the physical card, stay tuned. We have a lot of fixes to this process being rolled out, including automatic updating if you have replaced your card for a non-fraud reason.
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Excellent news, great to hear!
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Oh, thanks, I was with a friend from the US when they did used it.
Really looking forward to the changes : )
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What about for a fraud reason? When Nationwide forced me to replace my card (I was mightily annoyed, but nevermind), the card in Apple Pay automatically changed to reflect my new card the next day. From what you’re saying, you won’t be doing this? If I ask why, will I get a [valid] response? If so, please take this as me asking, otherwise… actually, I’ll ask anyway. I’d love the hear the invalid response.
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Canada is the other country. I’ve got a Canadian credit card in my Samsung Pay that also works on non-contactless machines. I’m a bit surprised they haven’t rolled it out elsewhere, since there’s no shortage of visitors from other countries coming to the US, where that functionality would be quite valuable.
On-topic, though- something I just thought of was, I’m not sure how often replacement card requests come from the US, but would it be feasible to keep a small stock of UK card blanks in the US to print and dispatch using domestic priority mail? I mention this because the few times I’ve lost my wallet while traveling, one of the first cards I was able to get replaced was always my American Express because they could print me a replacement card locally. Most memorable was Tokyo- I called at 10 AM to report my lost card, they gave me a pick-up code and told me to go to their office in the western part of the city, wait in the lobby, and an AmEx employee came, checked my passport, verified my pick-up code, and presented me with my replacement card in an envelope. That would be far more than I would expect of Monzo, of course. AmEx is much bigger. But something along those lines, maybe? I mean, expecting to be able to rock up to Monzo’s LA office and having an employee take time out of their day to present you with your replacement card then and there is asking a bit too much, but being able to ship replacements requested in North America from the US (with lower costs passed on- say, £20 for next day and £15 for third day by US Priority Mail) would certainly be appreciated by both visitors and long-term residents.
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Hi all 
Monzo just updated their terms which, cha ching, means new fees. 
Now we will have to pay £30 to have a card sent abroad. That seems for me quite excessive even if you use a courier.
Quick research: the most expensive UPS Express Saver I found was to Kiribati or Tuvalu. To these countries, UPS costs £26.07. Are all card going as far as the middle of the Pacific Ocean (which note is still cheaper than £30)? Seriously doubt it.
What are your thoughts? 
P.S. I responded to Monzo ‘An update to our terms’ email asking for clarification how the obtained the £30 figure. Will post if I get an update.
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This is already debated in the other thread.
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No it’s quite reasonable based on all the costs involved.
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They can’t afford at this stage to take the monetary hit for paying for people losing cards. Maybe in future when other costs can support it.
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Legacy banks can do this for low/zero fee because they make money out of the customers in other ways to supplement these hidden costs.
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You still have the option to send it to a UK address and get someone to post it if you think you can save a tenner or so with next day to wherever you might be in the World.
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Take a second card like Starlings with you and don’t keep in the same wallet or on another person/location. If one gets nicked, freeze it and have the new card sent to your home address and use the other for the remainder of the holiday.
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Have a read through this thread:
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