Monese Discussion & Feedback

  1. What do you guys think of Monesa?

  2. Why would you say Monzo is better than Monesa? Or rather what makes them both different?

Hahahaha, check it out: https://www.monese.com/

Main difference is, that they do, instant bank accounts I guess.

and Direct Debits and BACS Credits and SEPA Transfers etc.

They are great with good customer service.

They launched an Android app BEFORE an iOS app.

and your personal data is secure behind a PIN.

No high monthly fee for ā€œnothingā€ in return that you canā€™t get from a free bank account like Starling and soon to be Monzo

3 Likes

Thatā€™s what Iā€™m saying.

Plus they launching EUR accounts too

Yeah.
Iā€™m pretty sure Monzo, works literally anywhere. Even in Bangladesh, jesus.

as does pretty much any Mastercard

1 Like

Except the fees :((((

Ā£4.95 a month! Seriously?

Great customer service and in multiple languages, ability to create and send payments abroad specifying either sending currency or recipient currency in app and automatically seeing exchange rate and other currency amount (something Monzo, Starling and Fidor donā€™t do), IBAN and receipt of funds from abroad (something Monzo donā€™t do), app in multiple languages, ability to deposit cash by both PayPoint AND Post Offices, monthly allocation of free ATM withdrawals (and charges in excess of that less than Monzoā€™s likely 3%), create statements for variable periods, bonus paid when refer friends, it really is worth every penny

3 Likes

Iā€™ll stick with TransferWise and Monzo

2 Likes

For many, I think the benefit of Monese is being able to open a UK bank account without having a UK address. One of my friends recently arrived in the UK from overseas, and found it very difficult to open an account with any of the main banks due to not having had an address in the UK for six months. Starling made it equally difficult.

Monese, on the other hand, does not place such obstacles in the way of their customers.

I imagine this advantage works equally well for UK nationals moving to other parts of Europe.

4 Likes

I dabbled with Monese, l quite liked it - even the cute blob characters within the app. The thing l didnā€™t like was erratic Faster Payment timings, some would take a few minutes, some longer in quite an irregular pattern. The site says they process Faster Payments every thirty minutes. They told me that they are planning faster faster payments.

The key benefit l could see (which isnā€™t so applicable to me) was the GBP + EUR account.

In terms of cost l found it acceptable, l struggle to see a long term model on totally free banking funded by (in the case of marketplaces) commission and introduction fees. I think a benefit for fintech banks and companies is given (hopefully) their low cost base they can make fees Ā£5 etc rather than the Ā£18 a month NatWest previously got from me.

1 Like

Since they changed their systems recently their Faster Payments have sped up a lot.

This is something Iā€™ve been wondering about - Iā€™m relatively new to the UK, so please forgive me if Iā€™m missing something. Iā€™ve had a NatWest account for 4 years and a Tesco Bank account for 2 years - in that time Iā€™ve never been charged a single penny in fees. Most of the bank accounts Iā€™ve looked at donā€™t charge any monthly fees either (unless you want extras like insurance or cashback - I could get a NatWest rewards account with cashback for Ā£2/month). Yet I see a lot of banks, particularly newer ones/fintechs, advertising that ā€œunlike all the other banks, we donā€™t charge a feeā€. Or alternately, ā€œWe just charge a small monthly fee of Ā£x, unlike those other banks that slug you with massive fees.ā€ Where are all these bank accounts charging huge fees and why do people use them?

This was an experience ending last monthā€¦ It wasnā€™t slow, all arrived within three hours, l am use to Faster Payments being near instant. I acknowledge they say they are updating their services further. Just that aspect irritated me.

Instant FPS is normally only when sending bank and recipient bank are both Direct Participants, if one of the parties is not or if the FPS is sent thru an intermediary bank payments can take up to the end of the following banking day, and not all banks include weekends as a banking day. So FPS between Starling and Metro may take minutes but between say Fidor UK and Handelsbanken UK a payment at 5:30 pm Friday may arrive Monday morning!

Yep l appreciate the issue that they are not directly with faster payments. For example l sent two FP to my account, both sent within a minute of each other but landed two hours apart. Like l say it irritated me, but if you are a little more patient accept your money will be there within three hours (as they do say) they are a perfectly good offer.

1 Like

UK Banks say they donā€™t make money from current accounts, so they have to penalise people via charges for returned items such as Direct Debit to subsidize the free offer. Does a returned DD cost Ā£20 to a Bank, l suspect not l suspect itā€™s not even 1p.

The other way they encourage people to pay for banking is via ā€˜added valueā€™ accounts. For my Ā£18 l got free travel insurance (no good for me so never used), phone insurance (that was actually quite good) some other benefits and most importantly was the free Ā£250 overdraft. Again these packaged accounts are claimed to subsidize the overall offer.

Do l think new players such as Starling, Monzo can be sustainable with a totally free offer; no. We can look at the recent debate around international transaction costs for that. Do l think that Monzo could make a sustainable offer based on marketplace introduction and commissions; possibly. The benefit they have is lower costs, not a big expensive branch network to pay for and some decent cheaper to run IT hopefully.

If Monzo et al came knocking for a small fee a month, would l pay it - yes l would. I would rather a small fee (<Ā£5) a month and no subsequent fees than having fees creep in.

1 Like