Making Monzo Signup Simple

Monzo Chat News & Updates
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Our Head of Fincrime @natasha explains how we make signing up for a Monzo account as quick and simple as possible, whilst still making sure we meet all our legal requirements :woman_judge:

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Where is the link @bea :thinking:

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added! :see_no_evil:

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Fincrime! Sounds very blade runnerā€¦

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Call me old fashioned but Iā€™d prefer ā€˜childrenā€™ to ā€˜kidsā€™

Because we take this continuous approach to KYC, at some point we might reach out to ask you a few questions or for some extra information. For example, we might need to know the range your salary falls into, or whether you have any kids or other dependants.

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Hey @bea, I notice you donā€™t seem to publish your blog updates to your linkedin page, whereas you canā€™t shut the likes of Starling et al up on there, can you add that on your (or whoeverā€™s) to-do list?

Ta

(NB. I personally hate hate HATE linkedin, but alas itā€™s a business thing I canā€™t avoid :expressionless: :gun:)

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Last two bank accounts I opened were just filling in a web formā€¦ not hard at all. Iā€™m not sure how 26 days is even possible!

Monzo seems to be unique in requiring photo ID - in fact it took two weeks to get my wife an account because of the headache of fulfilling that requirement (plus a decent amount of money to various government agencies).

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Me neither. Iā€™ve been setting up bank accounts since the 70ā€™s (although it was only when I set up my Monzo account that I was ā€˜onboarded.ā€™ Sounds faintly piratical to me). The longest Iā€™ve waited is a week or so for a cheque book to be printed and sent.

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Every financial account iā€™ve ever opened hasnā€™t required photo ID, and every one of them opened over the last 10 years has been done instantly online.

Like 24% of the electorate i had neither passport or driving licence so hit the same problem as your wife when trying to get a Monzo current account. I eventually just decided to get a passport but i think this is a very worrying trend that threatens to exclude a lot of people from these new services.

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26 years with First Direct. The only bank account Iā€™ve opened since then apart from Monzo was with Bunq earlier this year. They required photo ID to verify.

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I recently opened B current account and earlier this year an Child & Co/RBS current account and didnā€™t use any form of photo ID. They usually asked questions from my Credit File instead.

Last time I had to use photo ID before Monzo to open a bank account was in 2004 when I opened my Natwest Student Account and didnā€™t have a credit history.

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Starling require photo ID - opened in the last week or so - maybe the regulations have changed over the last 25 years since I opened my Lloyds account that didnā€™t require a photo ID :slight_smile: - anybody tried to open another bank account in the last few months that didnā€™t require Photo ID ?

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Just over a week ago, B bank (Yorkshire Bank) no ID needed. Like I said about, they pull information from your credit file and you ask questions based on it.

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Banks will require to check ID and immigration status by law
https://community.monzo.com/t/uk-banks-to-check-70m-bank-accounts-in-search-for-illegal-immigrants/23316?u=alisufyan

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I opened a bank account at HSBC as a 15 year old back around 15 years ago now. We had to twist their arm very hard to let me do it without photo ID (which they did because it was just before my 16th birthday - they specifically said they would require it if I was 16) on the proviso that we would bring in photo ID soon

I never got a passport or drivers license for years and managed to get away with not bringing either in for a very long time though whenever I was there in person they asked for it. I did eventually show them my passport though I suspect I could probably have kept stringing them along

Monzo is the only other bank Iā€™ve signed up with but I found it very easy to do so using my provisional driving license. I donā€™t drive and have that purely for ID purposes - I still regularly get asked for ID at least once a month and Iā€™m getting near to 30 these days - so I didnā€™t mind the requirement

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You all raise a really good and interesting point about requiring photo ID! At the moment the current account does require photo ID. However, in the not too distant future we hope to be able to open accounts for people who do not have photo ID. In those circumstances, the limits might be slightly different, but the overall experience will be almost entirely the same.

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Would this be akin to a basic bank account, without access to overdraft facilities?

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So, all one needs to do is to hack one of the credit agencies, letā€™s say Experian as an example, and once you have someoneā€™s credit file you could start applying for all sorts of accounts.

Thank goodness nobody has ever hacked a credit agency. :wink:

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If you arenā€™t able to give us a reasonable response to our questions, we unfortunately may have to ask you to stop using your account in this way.

I find this interesting. What counts as ā€œreasonableā€? I assume this infers money laundering etc. so I assume there is so legal definition?

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Yes, that is right :ok_hand:

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