They have different risk appetites so are not the same thing.
2 Likes
FWIW - Very unlikely to be risk/ credit file related if eligible for a £1k overdrafts - more likely to be affordability or income verification related.
@chl1628 - I can take a look at the reason for you if you DM me your email.
6 Likes
What are people’s thoughts of if Flex offered cashback on purchases for Plus and Premium customers?
Could create an incentive to upgrade to paid accounts and drive Flex usage.
3 Likes
Great for customers. Terrible for Monzo.
2 Likes
Hi All. I am renting a caravan and they require a credit card to cover the £900 deposit. I believe the process will be done in a card reader and for that amount I would not be able to use my Monzo Flex directly on Apple Pay. My question is: would there be any sort of error when paying this as I would do it through the normal monzo card which is not credit and then moving it to flex. Or is there any way to effectively have Monzo Flex as a physical card (through Curve?) Thanks
No physical card yet 
If they accept contactless (a lot of deposits allow you do use apple/ google pay) you should be able to use your virtual Flex card.
But if not, yes - making the purchase on your Monzo debit card and then moving the transaction to Flex should also work.
We realise this experience isn’t perfect!
5 Likes
7 Likes
Similarly turned down (ironically before more regulation kicked in, I was able to get Monzo loans and paid them back without incident) - likewise for Curve Flex (not before helping them debug their forms - haha).
Yet OpenPay (which was a pain in the arse to open because I unsubscribed to a mailing list of one of their other companies many moons ago and it took their tech team ages to figure out what went wrong). ClearPay and Amazon themselves are more than happy to let me pay in installments and every time I have done this, it’s all been paid back in time.
It’s not really a big deal that I can’t use Flex (Monzo or Curve) at this time as I have other options. I know why I am not accepted, and it’s a fair cop - but again, just a bit of an inconvenience for the time being.
Possibly because you have too much credit available or too many credit searches which may affect your outcome for flex.
1 Like
Exactly. It’s all coming down slowly, thankfully. Will get there. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
1 Like
After using Flex for a bit, I think I’m changing my mind about how Flex transactions are categorised.
The way it works at the moment means that the spend is reflected in Trends when you repay a Flex transaction, rather than when you first made it.
While I think you can make the argument both ways, I think for Trends I’d rather see the cost recognised when I first made the transaction. After all, that’s the way it works when you make a payment on your credit card on a connected account.
Practically, that means changing the way categories work: the “refund” money from Flex and the repayments would just be categorised as Transfers.
Quick straw poll:
- Flexed transactions in Trends when you make the purchase
- Flexed transactions in Trends when you repay Flex
0 voters
1 Like
But it’s not a credit card and you’re only paying a fraction of the cost from your current account that month, which is a true reflection of spending.
Otherwise trends would be incorrect as you’ve not spent x amount, you’ve only spent 1/3rd of x.
1 Like
This is why all accounting packages and companies produce cashflow report and balance sheet report.
Because when you made the purchase it affects your balance sheet in full straight away as committed spent.
But month by month cashflow is affected less, as it will be scheduled in each reporting period as future transactions (which are potentially offset against future expected income too).
Neither are “wrong” or “correct” and often one wants to see both to make decisions “can I afford something at all?” but also “when can I afford it?” Cause sometimes the answer is yes, but from next month.
2 Likes
Yeah totally. Ideally we’d be able to see both in Monzo, but I suspect that’s a level of complexity that Monzo probably doesn’t want to get into…
If it was a proper credit card sure. But it’s not. At its core, it’s still a buy now pay later via instalments product, however it seems on the surface. For that reason, I think it’s logical to show them in trends when you repay.
After all, that’s how it would be if you buy now and pay later with Amazon, or PayPal, or Klarna. You only see the instalments, and it’s the instalments that have any meaningful impact on your budget and spending, as opposed to the purchase itself.
1 Like
I think this depends on how you use Flex. I’ve been paying out of my current account, which means you get an expenditure transaction and a refund transaction. So I don’t think what you saying is quite accurate. If the visual card transactions work differently, then I think you have a powerful point.
Does it not show as item full spend, and again item refund in same category and then flex x amount?
1 Like
Going back to these insightful comments, I really think there’s a big gap in the market for someone like Emma (@edo1493) or Lumio (@CR_Lumio) to step in and do these advanced things.
Both apps show great promise but they need to go further and faster and tackle the niches we’ll never see in Monzo (and also take inspiration from Das Budget) imo.
It does. But this is the exact point.
Because there’s been a transaction line for the purchase and then a refund, I’m saying (for me, other views will reasonably vary) that I’d rather the refund not be in the same category but flagged as a Transfer, the same as the repayments.
If, as @N26throwaway suggests, the virtual card doesn’t have this shuffle then the alternative option is the right (and only?) one.
1 Like
I’m team “when I repay it”
If that money hasn’t left my account, I haven’t paid it. So I don’t want it to reflect in a different week/month.
3 Likes