If my dad was to continue to use Monzo with the 1% ATM charge, does that make it more expensive or cheaper than just going to the Post Office and doing money transfers? I perfectly understand that it’s a better way of doing things than just taking cash, however, my calculations suggest that he will be £10 worse off over €450 than just withdrawing it from the Post Office online. Is this correct?
I’m not disputing that Monzo must charge to remain viable (and I support this policy), but I’m struggling to work out how to convince him to stick with it. He sees charges - any charges - as some kind of evil, when he doesn’t notice that he may be getting far more stiffed elsewhere but doesn’t realise it. This is a guy that bought £70 perfume from an airport when the exact same product was £46, with free shipping, from a reputable online retailer. If I could point out that the overall service is worth sticking around for, he might buy it, but this idea of customers having a real, direct input into the bank’s policies goes over his head.
Also, worth noting that Post Office rates vary, as they change it depending on the amount of purchased currency. So it’s a lottery. Monzo has same price all the time.
As long as I can prove that he’s still basically ahead, he’ll stick with it. Put it this way, he is someone that went on holiday and didn’t know where it is he stayed for the entire holiday. He is… frustrating.
Maybe you don’t charge 1% at the moment but from the poll it does look like a 3% charge may be introduced at the end of the year. While a 1% charge for withdrawals in Europe (2% elsewhere) makes sense, we can’t look at this in isolation. As much as I love the Monzo app, if we compare with a competitor such as Starling, we need to look at ATM withdrawal costs abroad and overdrafts on the account. Withdrawing cash in EU may cost 0% with Starling and 3% with Monzo, an Overdraft at Starling’s APR may cost less than Monzo’s proposed daily rate. IF Monzo follow the poll’s winning option rather than just cover their costs with a 1%/2% split I feel it will be detrimental to the business at a time when Starling will be branching out to Ireland and Atom and Tandem launching current accounts in the UK.
In essence, in your opinion, direct democracy will cause harm?
I voted for Option 1. If it must be paid, it must be paid. I’m the kind of person that gets annoyed when some drunken loser in the pub says the publican in my local micropub is ripping them off.
I agree with all that in its entirety. We are on the same page. I want Monzo to be a unitary experience in the sense that charges are overall reflected by location, not a divided one.
I am a bit fundamentalist about this. I want Monzo to succeed. It must preserve itself.
I don’t think it’s worth contrasting with competitors who are at an earlier stage of their business.
If/when those banks have 400k+ customers, 10-15% or 50,000 of which are generating 80%+ of your total per-customer costs, then they will also have to do something about it. Inevitably, whatever decision they come to, some people won’t agree.
Ultimately, this decision comes down to what Monzo customers want. So if Option 3 is decided, it’ll be because it’s what the community wanted. If that decision means that, for a small amount of people, a different bank becomes a more attractive proposition, then unfortunately that’s the trade off it comes down to.
For us, and for the vast majority of our customers, our value proposition doesn’t come down to ATM costs anyway. The statistics and the feedback we get overwhelmingly show that. If that decision makes someone move away from us despite all of our other value propositions, then we likely weren’t the correct card for that person in the first place.
I fully expect that another company will try and swing this future decision in their favor, and that’s fine too. We don’t think it’s a sustainable business move for the long term existence of a company - and ultimately we are here for the long term, not to burn through an unnecessary pile of venture capitalist money and then implode within 2 years.
I normally do POS abroad rather than ATM but even if I am unlikely to withdraw cash abroad I would not take a card with me if it meant I would be charged 3% in the event I do need cash,.particularly when you were open and said in Europe it actually costs you 1%.
I think this poll will backfire. I will now not be making Monzo my main account and will use Starling for salary and direct debits.
I did not say it did. I said it was one of many factors. So I would compare cost of withdrawing EUR notes in EU, Overdraft percentage, protection of my personal data by PIN or password on app, etc. Unfortunately your competitors tick every box
The ATM usage abroad discussion has been done to death. Could we please stick on topic here and advise our friend @tequila accordingly without speculation or digging up old arguments.
I don’t think you need to convince him. If he thinks post office is better then let him do it and he will be more comfortable in his decision.
Whilst we have a good amount of older people on the forums the average user age is still really young. I know there are 80 year olds here who say this doesn’t apply to them, but generally most older people will stick with what they know even if it sucks - It has worked okay for their whole life so why change it? Monzo will only really penetrate the grey market when they are late mainstream. They are arguably still pre mainstream so old people won’t trust them for a long time.
I remember when my mum added me to facebook about 8 years after I signed up thinking it was the coolest thing. That was about the same time I stopped using it.
Me and my mum are very happy with Monzo, although I’m probably the only one who wants the full account. It’s like everything, it’s great if you use a bit of common sense. My dad doesn’t have common sense, which is my issue.
I’ve had to explain to him that just rocking up at a Post Office is a bad idea - Post Office rates from the shop are awful. Furthermore, I’ve suggested that carrying large sums of money on you in an unfamiliar place is generally a bad idea. But it’s one of those situations where I think it might be best to leave him be even though he does my head in.
He’s the kind of person that will proactively ask your personal advice about something, then will reject your perfectly sound advice out of hand without considering it properly.
In essence, I’ll just tell him to get it from the Post Office. It’s more expensive, anachronistic and more risky but if he insists, that’s up to him. Horses and water and all that.
