On the face of it this seems like a good counterpoint, but I actually think instead it just helps to highlight a fundamental design flaw in their approach.
The difference between the two scenarios comes to choice though. They can still communicate using the two day grace period, but the user actively made the choice to pay that much, so there’s a shift in onus, and it changes who I’d be frustrated with.
This I think is one way of fixing their approach to be more inclusive and fair.
Tymits default is 1 month, they send a reminder out towards the end of the month to remind people to replan any payments if they so wish, before the final bill for that period is signed off.
Reminders work great for if you forget to change something which you really need to.
Monzo and 12 months is the sensible thing to do, can soon follow up on that reminder to replan the payment schedule if needed.
Those of you who want a user-defined default are missing the point: Flex has been consciously designed to earn some money off people who don’t bother to actively engage. Something has to earn Monzo revenue, it can’t keep providing stuff for free by default.
The designers have already gone through the arguments you’re all making here, and have already decided on the opposite course of action.
I applied for Flex on the first day and I have still not had my invite. I really haven’t got the Coral Crew payback here! I live for vapours of a card to go with it
I mean, of course. They have a product team whose job is to design the product for the best interests of their brief. I don’t think anyone has a problem with the fact it makes them money.
I feel everything said here is fair consumer feedback about the mechanisms of how this new feature works. That’s like…. 80% of what this forum contains?
And I’d make a wager that Monzo aren’t banking on peoples laziness in defaulting to the 12 month plan, but actively choosing the 12 month plan.
I think the merits of
“Oh it works like X, I’d prefer Y”,
“Oh but with Y you get problem Z”
“Well that could be solved with Solution A”.
Are still worthwhile discussion to be had on here.
If you use Virtual Flex - most likely not at all as the transactions don’t hit your main feed. Possible to make some assumptions using the text field when you pay your first instalment.
If you only use Flex Later - there’s probably some convoluted way to track it through sheets - but I it would possibly be unreliable due to an inability to track subsequent instalments or changes in plan properly.
That is incorrect as if it defaults to a “3 month” term, it would have been paid off by then.
What I object to is the default option being one on which interest is chargeable. By all means, let customers change the term to a longer one and backdate interest to day 1…
Just tried Flex for the first time, used Apple Pay and remembered to change to Flex card ……. very smooth and well laid out.
I then went back in and played around with edit payments to see how it flowed, before finally using the pay off extra and settling in full. Very impressed and looking forward to see how this could be expanded in future
Others could object to the default option being one on which the largest sum is taken.
There’s no “one size fits all” answer here. The regulators, as I understand it, are clearly of the position that the option that takes the least money from a customer each time is the one that does the least harm.
My own view is that this is a largely theoretical problem; as you have to make a conscious choice to use Flex, the likelihood that I would then forget to pick a payment plan is incredibly low, I think.
Indeed, after I activated my virtual card yesterday, I almost instantly made an unexpected purchase with it, and after the purchase finished I was almost straight away grabbing my phone and making sure it had come through OK and that I picked the three-month plan.
I understand that Monzo will be paying attention to how many customers roll over to the default 12-month plan, and I don’t doubt they will look at things again if it seems like its happening to an unusually high number of customers.
For me, I’d like an alert in the main feed - it took me a few moments to sort my payment out because that’s where I was looking for something - I hadn’t seen the notification because at the time I hadn’t cleared my phone’s notifications since the last time I picked it up, so there were loads that ‘drowned out’ the Monzo one. It was almost by accident that I clicked on the Flex account instead and was like “Oh, there it is!”
With my experience of regulators/ombudsman, they are likely at some stage to object to the default being an interest payable option and will judge that as more harmful then the interest free option.