TL;DR: Monzo should add custom categories and virtual cards to joint accounts if at least one of the users has Plus/Premium, and they should make this change immediately, resolving other feature integration of Plus/Premium into joint accounts later. This “lite” version would solve the 95% case.
We talk a lot on here about Joint Account Parity - or, rather - the tragic lack thereof. Have any staff recently indicated whether this is being actively worked on? If not perhaps a staff member could do so?
I understand that fully integrating all the features of Plus/Premium is complex as there’s things like insurance in there. However, for people who’s financial lives revolve around their family (so: the majority of people out of their ‘20s), the lack of two key features in joint accounts is really crippling them:
- Custom Categories
- Virtual Cards
With Summary/Trends and a lack of custom categorises, the overview you get is completely blunted: there’s a reason custom categories was the most requested feature ever, and it’s a bit of a joke that six years later we’re still here without them in the joint account. The blog itself describes this as “one of our most-requested features!” - so how is this still not a part of joint accounts?
Virtual cards are critical for money management in Monzo because a whole slew of bills payments can only be done on a card (thanks American tech companies!). This undermines the utility of the bills pot, leaving very fuzzy edges around it. Further, the ability to tie a virtual card to a particular pot enables segmented budgeting that’s really critical to money management. But again, for no real good reason, this is completely denied to joint accounts. The blog post announcing this (“Take total control of your spending”) also describes paying from a pot as one of the “most requested features”, and the lack of it very weird - yes indeed!
There’s no good reason not to allow these features in the joint account immediately. You can either let both users use the whole feature if either has Plus/Premium, or make it read-only for the non-Plus/Premium user if you must to encourage the other user to upgrade.
As Monzo’s customer base grows, more and more people will be older than 20-something, and so more and more will find these features in the joint account critical. So please, Monzo, fix this and don’t leave it another year. Joint accounts can’t continue to be a second-class citizen, and these two simple feature additions would solve the 95% case!