I want to open a joint account with a friend. I’ve been a Monzo customer since November '17, he doesn’t have a Monzo account. Can anyone tell me how we can open a joint account? He’s not so interested in opening an account of his own then a joint one with me.
I don’t know if it’s just your phrasing, but opening an account with a friend isn’t always the best idea. You’re going to be financially tied to that person.
Your friend will have to open a Personal Monzo account and then you’ll both have to apply for a Joint account. At that point, you can choose not to use your personal accounts at all. Give this whole idea some serious thought though - a Joint account ties you to the other person fincancially, so 100% trust is needed from both people.
Yes, joint accounts between friends are very rare, and not recommended. They formalise a legal contract between the users, and both of you are separately liable for any debt run up on the account, and either of you are entitled to withdraw all the money, so you really need a long-term, stable relationship with the other person.
If you need an account you can both transact on, use Monese. Its joint account is not reported to the Credit Reference Agencies, though you will both need to open a sole account first, then link up.
The reason we want a joint account is that we run trips for a club we belong to. Monzo would be useful because we could create Pots for the 12-15 people who go on the trips and when they pay into the account, we could allocate the money accordingly. Then, when we need to pay for a hotel or transport, we could transfer from the pots and pay with a card. Obviously we’d need 2 signatories. It just seems like a simple way of dealing with this rather than through a central Club account that has lots of different transactions going through it
Most joint account require only one signature from both users. In other words, either user can do any transaction without authorisation from the other.
Dual signature joint accounts do exist, but they’re cumbersome, and Monzo doesn’t offer them anyway.
Sounds like you need a club/society account from a High Street bank.
Yes, sounds like you need something like the Lloyds Bank Treasurer’s account, for community groups.
It allows dual-authorisation for online payments, a chequebook supporting two signatures for cheques, and the possibility of using debit cards too. It’s all free if you are eligible.
They have an OK app and also support cash or cheque deposits (including cheques paid in via the app if that’s needed).
It may seem a bit like overkill but it’s probably what you need, and using a personal bank account isn’t really appropriate.
You would have to either do separate accounting in Excel to divide up the money or open savings accounts alongside the current account to create Pot-style functionality, but that isn’t insurmountable with a bit of organisation.
I once bought equipment when doing some volunteer work for a village hall where my grandparents lived and got a cheque to reinburse me for the networking equipment I had bought and fitted.
The Lloyds account does seem to be very commonly used by Parish Councils, Village Hall Committees, Youth Clubs and other similar local community groups. Perhaps because it’s one of the few big name banks to offer such a comprehensive service for free?
They also offer a similar account under the Bank of Scotland brand for people in Scotland.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t alternatives though, like the Metro account mentioned by @anon75400416. I can’t speak to the details of that offering, having no experience, but it sounds very similar. I do know that they don’t have cheque imaging support in their app, which might be a problem as many of these groups seem to be almost entirely run on cheques! But they do have 7 day opening at their stores, so you can pay in cheques and cash there if you want to.