Not really. You don’t need to be married to benefit from the legal protections of a joint account. Take for example and unmarried couple, who have been in a long term relationship. The same applies to them in the example I gave previously. It will also apply to couples in a Civil Partnership (not covered in the marriage statistics from memory), parents who have a joint account with a parent etc.
In finance, there are lots of use cases that go over and above what you would consider to be normal, and sometimes, it’s just better to admit that there is a need for something, that can really help people, than just stick your head in the sand and ignore it.
I understand you’re a massive advocate of Monzo, however, just because a feature isn’t something you would use, please don’t negate it, as I’m willing to bet, there are loads that are.
I can use it, but if my money is in Monzo, it’s not accessible to my wife in an emergency.
We actually still bank separately but as I have the higher (and more regular) income my account is in joint names “just in case”. Simply having a joint bank account isn’t enough, it actually needs to have my money in it which means it might as well have all my bills coming out of it. Constantly shuffling money from one account to another for the sake of a better user experience will become too much effort eventually.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
In other words, you have been discounting this idea in this thread. There is an obvious use case and need for joint accounts out there. Sometimes, it’s better to admit when you’re wrong.
Andy has hit the nail on the head. It doesn’t really matter if users of joint accounts or pots are married/unmarried/whatever, it’s the legal status of the funds within that is going to count.
In a joint account, the funds (or liabilities if the account is in debt) belong to both holders jointly and severally, which means belong to both independently of the other (ie. either holder can legally take possession of all the funds, regardless of who paid it in)
I guess, if Monzo invent a ‘pot’ it’s going to be a court who decides which parties hold the funds within.
I believe the above is the original quote of yours that I highlighted. You make the implication that as it may only be needed by a subset of users, it’s not viable. I believe that the rest of the thread proves this assumption wrong.
That’s correct, there’s plenty of user who don’t have dependents & aren’t in relationships who therefore won’t need need the legal status of a joint account. You must be aware of that, even if you don’t fall into that group yourself?
Edit
There’s also plenty of users who would like the legal status but will presumably still have the other use cases for the shared pots.
I’m very well aware. However, your previous posts imply that as it’s only a subset of users who do want / require the legal protection of joint accounts, it’s not worth adding to a product road map.
Regardless of the intent of your original post, that was the impression it gave. Sometimes, it’s best to just take it on the chin and admit when you’re wrong, instead of just digging a deeper hole.
I guess the issue is people taking out a Monzo ‘pot’, instead of a traditional joint account, would have to be clear on the legal position of the funds. And that legal position hasn’t been decided by a court yet. So until there’s a stated case and a legal position, no-one would really know, and a court case could overrule any Ts&Cs Monzo make the ‘pot holders’ sign anyway.
There will be some legal standards document setting how you can have joint ownership over funds. I would guess, it would be as simple as some kind of checkbox on the pot creation form or whatever, which just requires some extra legwork. If you both, legally, agree that you are sharing the money and this is recorded and the account meets the legal standards - I would assume it is a joint account with shared funds and liabilities?
No. The whole point is: Monzo is playing with ideas around separate accounts that have shared pots vectored over the top. Direct debits might sit in the overlap and deduct equal amounts from both accounts to jointly pay bills. But the money would not sit in a traditional joint account. It would be a new invention and the legal status of funds would be ambiguous in any legal challenge.
I haven’t suggested that this isn’t something that users need.