Is it just me or is the current account underwhelming

Monzo Chat
#1

So I got the current account a while back and was at that stage really excited about the whole thing(Travelled from Suffolk to attend the event) . A month on and I just cant find a reason to use it. I love the prepaid card, it just makes sense, easy to transfer money to friends with monzo. Ring fenced cash(Biggest plus), especially good on a night out or a trip with a set budget. Easy to fund with a click from another debit card.

With the current account much of the reason goes away. I find myself using the prepaid card much more than the current account one. As I use a santander 123 account I basically lose out on money if I were to switch my debits as I wont get the cash back I do now. If I close my Lloyds account I lose out on mobile phone insurance, car breakdown and travel insurance. Money Dashboard gives me a view over all of these accounts about spending habits etc whereas monzo is just a smaller view.

I hope that you guys can point me to the reasons why its good(Besides freezing the card) as I just seem to be missing the yay and if the current plan goes ahead to migrate all prepaid across I will unfortunately just be looking for a similar product to the prepaid from another provider.

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Please keep the prepaid cards
#2

Itā€™s meant to underwhelming, itā€™s a bank account. Thereā€™s nothing exciting about something that just sits there and works well.

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#3

You only have a very small portion of the current account functionality at the moment. The preview is simply intended to enable users to test the core functionality - faster payments, direct debits etc.

Thereā€™s lots more features coming :soon:

Check out the #sneak-peek topics for a preview of some of them

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#4

Itā€™s not finished yet, itā€™s still a very early version really just to test the connections to the external payment processors. More will come with time :slight_smile:

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#5

Hi Andrew

I had the 123 account and it was popular for good reasons (even with the reduction in current account interest rate). Although Iā€™ve migrated away from Santander, it remains a near-market leader for DD cash back et al.

Neither of the two new mobile banks are offering (or even planning to offer) that sort of enticement.

And this bank isnā€™t the finished article - itā€™s early days and the feature list will evolve in the months to come.

To their credit, Monzo make it clear up front that this is currently a journey. You may well have pitched in too early to really see what all the fuss is about.

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#6

For me the fact that my balance is up-to-date within minutes of of me performing a transaction is a convincer enough (although I am going to be missing the mobile phone insurance etc.)

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#7

It was made clear to me at the start following my invite from the introduction that the current account is basic, its barebones and itā€™s just the start.

Expect it to ramp up quickly over the remainder of the year, but right now the current account can do less than the pre-pay card, and that I think its wholly intentional.

Remember they have written a whole new processing layer to the current accounts, this will need to be built upon and not rushed (remember this is a current account which is far more significant than a pre-pay card).

The app youā€™re using for the current account is NOT the final public release of the banking app. Has been stressed that this is a preview.

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#8

Ultimately, it depends what you value most from your account. I know I might make Ā£5-Ā£10/month running everything through another bank. Personally though, I find the instant notifications and dynamic budgeting tools that Monzo offer worth far more to me than this. Seeing how much I spend in certain areas had led to me moderating my behaviour and saving far more per month than the Ā£5-Ā£10 I would have got in a ā€œlegacyā€ bank account.

Admittedly, the current account isnā€™t yet as polished as the prepaid card. But that was made clear to everyone who decided to sign up early.

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#9

Instant notifications - how did we survive so long without that ? :flushed:

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#10

I too am a bit underwhelmed, progress seems a lot slower that I expected (almost 3 weeks since the last TestFlight build and sneak peeks that seem to taking quite some time to be realised).

That said I appreciate there must be a heap of backend, aux work required so the migration of all prepaid users is much smoother than it is currently.

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#11

Were you late / not paying attention at the rollout event? Or maybe you were at an event where they didnā€™t bring down expectations enough? Seems the expectations here are much higher than were drilled in to everyone at the event i went to :thinking:

They said it was a bare bones, minimum viable product going out to a very small number of testers to test out the core functionality of the new features that have not launched yet. It might not work, it might break so keep your prepaid and legacy banks running alongside it. Tom also told everyone along the lines of: if you think it sucks then please give them all the feedback you can via chat so they can improve it, rather than posting on social media that it sucks.

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#12

100% of the reason for wanting Monzo when I was demoed an early version over two years ago.

Now Iā€™m super excited for all the other functionality thatā€™s coming.

A ā€˜current accountā€™ will always be ā€˜underwhelmingā€™ to me. Itā€™s what else that comes with it thatā€™s exciting.

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#13

Good point I really do like that, its one of the reasons I use the prepaid card as much as I can.

#14

I was at the android event , I get that its bare bones it just felt a bit like the bits I like from the prepaid were gone.

#15

In the end I am not posting that it sucks or anything I was just wondering if I was the only one feeling like I was missing something, I do still get the feeling that android is not the favorite child though. Looking at the sneak peek stuff I was missing whats coming and some good points the others have brought up. I will try a bit harder to use the current account over the prepaid as I really do like the Monzo brand and my experience with the prepaid card has been top notch.

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The Monzo Roadmap
#16

I really donā€™t understand why anyone would come on here to talk this down? Canā€™t help but think theyā€™ve missed the point. The prepaid is beta and is pretty good now. The current account isnā€™t even a beta, is it?

This is the unfortunate consequence of releasing a product in development to consumers who donā€™t understand what theyā€™re getting into and expect the finished product.

I think all feedback on the preview current account should be channelled back through the app.

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#17

The Android app will be at feature parity by the time the rolloutā€™s complete.

Tomā€™s mentioned that itā€™s even going to get some features sooner than the iOS app :eyes:

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The Monzo Roadmap
#18

I was sent an email to say please provide feedback with a link to this forum, I am not talking down the brand at all but giving my current feeling on my experience with the product. Of course its not done and its bare bones but I was trying to also get some insights into what other people find awesome about it as it felt like I was missing something.

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#19

Understood. I think people find the potential awesome.

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#20

I wish I was lucky enough to get an invite to a current account so I to could say how underwhelming it was :eyes:

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Should Danny get a CA invite?