Id also like a time sensitive lock on pot withdrawels to stop impulse buys. Say i want to withdraw i then have to wait say 24hours before the money actually comes out, that way saving me from making that stupid impulse buy
That’s a great idea. Could be similar to the gambling block recently introduced, whereby you need to chat with Cops if you need it sooner.
I may be in the minority here, but I just feel like we are taking more and more responsibility away from ourselves, and putting onto bank customer service staff.
The gambling block I get - That has already proven to be successful.
But to effectively have someone take responsibility for your savings pots as well? I’m not so sure.
Perhaps it would benefit people, and I’m not being open minded enough! But I can see scenarios where this causes more harm than good.
I’m personally not too sure about locking pot money away totally but adding friction to withdrawing it would be interesting to explore.
Interesting idea! I’ve moved your post & the replies to a new topic as I think it’s different enough to the idea that was being discussed to deserve it’s own topic & a separate discussion. This will make it easier for other users to find in the search too. I hope that’s ok!
I dont think it necessarily needs to be on customer services accords. More so a “type” of pot that has a delay withdrawal built into it so any time i make a withdrawal i have to wait 24hrs say before it shows in my main account.
In the same way theyre going to have a pot with interest type i think this savings deterrent type would work well for people like me that tend to take money out of the pot for convenience rather than transfer from a legacy account
This would be good, and would certainly help prevent the majority of impulse purchases, but I could still see situations where someone would contact CS to try and get the funds quicker, similar to visiting a branch to withdraw funds quickly from a fixed savings account.
Depending on the 3rd parties used for interest based savings, there may end up being a withdrawal delay anyway.
In the end, learning self control is still the best way to prevent impulse purchases, especially if you’re on a tight budget.
This is easier said then done. Some sort of lock for pots + making it more difficult to unlock them earlier (increasing friction) would be a huge benefit for loads of people who are trying to budget.
If budgeting is really difficult, then people should maybe consider options such as Squirrel (not tried it myself). I’ve spent years reducing my impulse purchases (they still happen occasionally).
I setup different bank accounts for payments, shoved money in harder to get places, but in the end I could still just wander into a bank and withdraw those savings within minutes. It certainly added friction but never solved the problem of impulse spending.
Long ago, I remember discussion on the blog about ways of helping with impulse spending.
The suggestion was to hold back payments made late at night until you opened the app the next day and confirmed them. I’d enable a feature like this, I definitely make my worst decisions at night.
But shouldn’t Monzo be trying to help it’s customers - recommending another service isn’t good enough in my book (unless they get an integration with Monzo!).
There seems to be a steong desire for locked pots and I think they’d be incredibly useful to people.
Yeah they should be helping customers, I’m wondering what happened to Monzo University?
I’m not completely against locked pots, if combined with other suggestions such as taking payments like Direct Debits straight from a pot they would work rather well. Your available balance could then potentially only reflect money you can safely spend as everything else is safe within pots.
I’m not sure I’d agree with that statement - Unless you are getting your info elsewhere.
I do agree it would help SOME people - But I also think there are much better ways to combat the underlying problem.
What sort of things do you have in mind?
Education. From primary school through to the end of secondary school (and beyond if necessary).
Young persons bank accounts will go hand in hand with this, and encourage a far more mature attitude to money (in my opinion).
I agree education would be a huge help, but it isn’t a catch-all like a built in feature would be though. For example people with bipolar disorder when on a high have massive impulse spending at night and may spend their entire months salary on food or a holiday - only to have enormous regret the next morning.
https://www.bipolar-lives.com/bipolar-excessive-spending.html
Yeah, there will always be situations and scenarios for certain people where something like a “locked pot” would come in useful - Not disagreeing there.
Whether it’s enough for Monzo to build into the app? That’s a different question - Especially when there are already ways you could do this.
I think a different service is great - It creates more friction, and makes it harder to get the money.
I mean, come on - We can come up with a whole host of different things that would suit different people - Or we could use what already exists…
Or Monzo could integrate solutions into its product and help everyone who wants the product. Also your comment seems very against trying new solutions to a problem which could lead to the problem bring solved in a better way. Just because a solution exists doesn’t mean it’s the best solution.
I didn’t mean for it to sound that way.
I just think there are a lot of niche services that would slow down development time, and possibly make the app less pleasurable to use - I see this as one of those things.
If it was a massively requested feature, I’m sure Monzo would look to implement it - But the feedback from this thread suggests it’s not.
Monzo could try and implement a lot of solutions to a lot of problems - It doesn’t mean they should, especially when there is possibly a solution which already exists.
Completely understand this point of view if you don’t think people would use them. Personally, I think they’d be super useful and help loads of people.