Thanks for the thread. I too would like Joint Accounts from Monzo (or even multiple accounts). Hurdles I can see on the way to getting there:
- Multiple accounts - Monzo simply doesn’t support this, this would probably be a major reorg both UI-wise and on the backend, they appear to have assumed users would have one account!
- Multiple users of the same account - a similar level of work and complexity
- Legal stuff - personally I don’t see this as a huge hurdle for simple UK joint accounts, but it probably has some impact, esp. as they expand internationally
I’d expect to see one or two of those ticked off before they even consider joint accounts (for example multiple accounts would be useful for other reasons, like a savings account). Do the other challenger banks offer joint accounts yet? I do like the tide setup for multiple accounts, which is as you’d expect, but they are for business only. They are just thinking of rolling out accounts/cards for multiple people based on this (similar to joint accounts).
The pots idea I find worrying in many ways as it looks like they’re trying to avoid the concept of multiple accounts, let’s hope they are just a stop-gap or a step on the way. With open banking I guess it’s possible that even before proper joint accounts, Monzo might offer access to the feed from other accounts within the app? That would require at least point 1 above though. We have pots now so they’ll probably be forced to consider them full accounts at some point - people will start to ask for transfers in, separate transactions, and separate cards for pots, at which point you have a separate account.
It’s interesting though because it sounds like I have exactly the same setup as you (as does iansilversides upthread), and it doesn’t really bother me that I have a joint account with another bank (shared with my wife), and my own account at Monzo - which still has plenty of activity. Yes it’d be nice to use Monzo for the joint account, but I’d first have to be very confident it was completely reliable (probably 1 year from now at least), and then I’d have to persuade my wife to change it too, for no particularly good reason except I’d like to categorise spending - that could be a hard sell. So at the minute things like grocery spend, mortgage etc are not categorised within monzo, and I have one lump sum going out from my account to the joint every month, but I like them kept separate and would not consider having just one joint account, so it’s more a failing of my old bank where the joint account is.
I honestly find it far more annoying that there are very limited categories in Monzo for current spending, but do sympathise that if most of your spending is on joint, it renders your monzo account pretty redundant and means you can’t properly look at your spending without using several apps. Our joint account runs pretty much on autopilot for us - it has Direct Debits set up, and we transfer money in every month, food spending is the only unpredictable bit, but we keep a float for that. It would be nice to categorise it all in detail I guess though the spending is pretty consistent - but I’m not sure Monzo categories and spending reports are up to that task yet anyway given the limited categories. I’m used to using several apps so nothing feels too broken, just the way it was, but it would certainly be nice long term to bring joint spending into Monzo.
For what it’s worth, I did a little poll of 500 members here recently and joint accounts was ranked 5th, so it is up there amongst the most requested features, but probably Apple Pay and a few other substantial things are higher (personally that’s not high for me, but it’s important to recognise there are a huge number of conflicting demands, many of which will take significant investment of time). They also have the distraction of the CA rollout, the open banking APIs, and a possible launch in the US for growth (speculation on my part).
So I can sympathise with Monzo here - they are building a full-stack bank and cannot afford to slip up on the way, which means they’re going to be a bit slower than perhaps we’re used to from consumer apps. Due to all the factors above, and the omission from the road map, it doesn’t look to me like joint accounts will come this year, much as I’d like to see them.