This was my point 2 comments ago though, the people who open a bank account just because they are intrigued probably already have done.
It’s not about what you or I would do or really anyone on here, but what the average customer likes or finds useful even if they don’t ever use it. I don’t think the average customer opens bank accounts just because they are intrigued, there will likely be a reason they are shopping around and it will take features that they can easily visualise to overcome the inertia of simply remaining where they are.
Anyway I’m happy to have different perspectives on it. I just think the more strings on monzo bow the more attractive they will be even if they are rarely used.
Possibly, it’s generally an accepted work around that you to use two accounts if you want to go full Monzo. Generally, people seem ok with that so I don’t see a huge driver for change on that front. I am now very used to transferring money between accounts and don’t think much of it as it takes seconds, especially Fintech to Fintech as you don’t need a dreaded card reader. To be honest I bank in a very different way from how I used to and I welcome the change.
People definitely open FinTech accounts because they are intrigued. To suggest otherwise is, I think, missing part of what the movement is about. I’m in no way trying to say cheque imaging isn’t important, I just don’t believe this is the main driver for choosing Monzo.
It’s definitely not the main driver for choosing Monzo, but it could well be a big driver (for the people who don’t much care that monzo is a FinTech) to choose another bank instead.
Well I think this is a key point, “fintech fans” probably have already opened an account, and they consider it in a different way to “normal people”.
To become a major success, Monzo now needs to go after the next set of customers: the “average” people who aren’t so interested in fintech but may be swayed to switch to a new bank if they can be sold on it.
Missing features that most mainstream banks have makes this a much harder sell and will be a problem long term.
I’m currently someone who is ‘Full Monzo’ but also has a Starling side account.
The only thing that’s keeping me with Monzo at the moment is the Bill Pot setup. If/when Starling introduce their version of this, I’ll be seriously considering moving across to them. I’m lucky is that I live close to 3 post offices so it’s just as convenient (and free) to deposit cash there than use Paypoint and get charged by Monzo and Starling already have better card controls than Monzo - not just ‘freeze or unfreeze’ but actually turn off specific features on the card.
If Monzo wants to seriously launch a Business Bank Account though, I don’t see how they can NOT be developing cheque imaging. For personal accounts there’s an argument about whether this is worth the investment or not, but I can’t imagine many businesses will be happy to open an account with them where the only option to deal with cheques is to post them through and then get payment delayed as you wait for them to be received and for Monzo to process them. Yes, I know there’s limits to how much and how often you can process a cheque via the app, but it’s still better than posting everything.
Also, something to remember - there’s 2 ‘sides’ to cheque imaging. As well as customers using it to deposit cheques, banks themselves use cheque imagine to process the cheques they receive. The bank receive’s the (paper) cheque, scans it and then sends the image over to the original bank rather than the old way of literally posting the original cheque over.
So, Monzo should already have ‘half’ of this setup already.
I agree completely about what you say about business accounts.
My understanding of the “backend side” of cheque imaging is that Monzo do not have that setup already.
I believe that, if they did, they would already be members of ICS, and all that would be left to do is implement the scanning in-app code (which is actually not the most difficult bit since there are already open source versions of the scanning and OCR technology which they could simply add-in to the app).
What happens at the moment is, because they are not ICS members, they have to get a clearing member bank to clear the cheques on their behalf. They then add the funds to the customer’s account after the cheque has cleared. It seems like this is a fairly manual process and would probably work better if they were ICS members themselves, but then that would come with the cost of joining the scheme and all the technical integration work to develop their own “back end” processing linked directly to the ICS (which is the hardest part and, as you say, distinctly separate from any work to integrate imaging into the app).
I think the partner bank they use to clear cheques is NatWest, or at least it always used to be back when everything was paper based clearing so it probably still is now.
It seems like a long shot but I thought I’d post something for the first time in the community.
So I recently opened a Monzo account. I’ve been looking at Monzo since July 2019 (this is the time I opened my Halifax bank) - as I had no ID at the time. Now that I do, I opened a Monzo account. Halifax wasn’t all bad, but there was one feature that has given me the reason to post this for. Halifax has a cheque scanner. For example, you get a cheque, you scan it onto the Halifax app and you wait a few days for the money to get into your account. Now Monzo is doing this differently. While it’s a good method, I think they should work on a cheque scanner. Monzo allows its users to post their cheques through post to them and you’ll get your money within a couple of days.
So long story-short, does Monzo have any plans for the cheque scanner feature in the future, like Halifax? Thanks!
Hi - I recently deposited a cheque into my Monzo account and have to say it was an ordeal. It took over 2 weeks for the funds to be available in my account from when I posted the cheque via tracked post as advised.
Cheques are still part of everyday banking and Monzo has to properly support this. With that in mind, why are Monzo not part of the cheque imaging processing? As a tech minded bank I would have thought you’d be all over this?
Monzo have stopped working on it for the foreseeable future.
They determined that it wasn’t very sought after and they missed their licence application window which only happens a couple of times a year (I think).
Read more about it below and vote if you’d like it
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Anarchist
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Yep. I wouldn’t post a cheque to a bank. If you have an ATM nearby which takes deposits, you could open an account there. Or an even better option, if cheques are important to you, is to open an account at a ‘cheque imaging’ bank.
It took about 24 hours for me to open an account at Starling, deposit a cheque and receive the money.
