I don’t see a way to add my loyalty cards with Monzo or Starling like I do with Barclays. Or a way to get free and “impartial” 1:1 advice from a “mentor” which I’d argue is more in tune with the ethos of making money work for everyone than charging £5 for custom categories or a Google export. Not sure how the latter works though or who mentors are
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I forgot about this!
They are partnering with a fintech (Bink) for this, so strictly speaking you maybe can’t count it as Barclays innovation?
Still, they’re trying, which was my point!
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Yeah but I don’t expect high streets to be leading the way.
I expect the agile fintechs to be coming up with new stuff.
Something like a credit card which auto moves money into a pot/space to cover the amount and then pays it off cycle balance the day you want.
Or showing my Amex spends in the budgeting.
Or better budgeting tools!
Maybe a completely new interface to rethink spending and how money works. Monzo could do with a complete rethink as it’s a mess imo although I’ve been saying that for what feels like years.
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I can’t say for Monzo, but Starling is partnered with something called Tail, which is looking to do away with loyalty cards altogether, and just pay the cashback earned directly into the account every week. It’s a small start, but I’d say that’s innovation on top of loyalty cards which are pretty old hat.
Aren’t “mentors” just Personal Bankers?
Not looking to turn this into some weird sort of tech turf war, but Barclays doesn’t even have G Pay.
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And imagine if that card and flick between “credit” and debit mode when needed without the customer.
So anywhere MasterCard is accepted it defaults to credit and falls back to debit. Those credit payments accounted for in a credit pot/space the instance you pay.
I’m looking for things like this. Where the bank actively says yes I’m crypto friendly and forward thinking.
Combining wealth in fiat and crypto 
Nice minimal-ish layout too
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I believe that this isn’t technically possible at the moment, as Visa and Mastercard allocate a card number (BIN) which is coded as either credit or debit.
So you would either have to have a card which presented as credit all the time, like the Bunq travel card (and potentially didn’t work in debit-only situations as a result) or a card which presented as debit all the time, like Curve (therefore losing the Section 75 protection of credit, and the higher interchange fees for the bank).
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Monzo definitely isn’t your thing then:
Monzo seems hesitant to show the same openness to crypto, however, with Pagni [Monzo’s legal council] dismissing Bitcoin as a “fad”.
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It’s been covered by Monzo staff to that Monzo is a crypto positive bank however I use Halifax for my on ramp.
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Each to their own opinion but personally as an investor I’d rather not see Monzo waste resource and expose themselves to unnecessary risk by supporting a novelty investment product.
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You could argue Monzo is a novelty investment product.
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You could argue the sky is purple I suppose 🤷
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Does this mean I should buy crypto?
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I don’t know, but I won’t be investing in banks.
Any bank not specifically Monzo 
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Just seen this in my Barclays app. How does it actually work. Do they convert your, say Nectar Points, into Barclays Rewards or are they in addition to those points?
That’s excellent. I’ve long wondered why this isn’t a standard feature for all banks. It’s crazy to me that you can have £1,000 sitting in a savings account, but if your current account goes to -£10 you suddenly start getting charged.
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It’s a very limited feature so far.
I think it works by the checkout process at supported retailers automatically feeding a transaction ID into a Bink backend system which is also synced-up with the debit card authorisation code in some way.
Barclays then match the transaction to your loyalty card account on your behalf, so there is no need to present the loyalty card at the time. You just pay with your Barclays Debit card and automatically accrue points.
It’s quite similar to how Flux deal with e-receipts, on a technical level.
Separately, but related, the integration with Barclays allows you to view your points balance from the loyalty cards in the Barclays app.
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Several banks have offered such a facility for years, even if they haven’t given it a name like TSB have or publicised the functionality…
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‘Crypto neutral’ might be a fairer assessment. They haven’t banned crypto transactions outright (and no sign they may do so), and they’ve said that personal use transactions shouldn’t be a problem. BUT, they haven’t advertised themselves for crypto, and haven’t put it out there unprompted that a Monzo account would be a great option for crypto. Hence, overall, neutral.
A true crypto positive bank would be something like Revolut, where they’ve built in the ability to buy and sell crypto and advertise that. (And yes, I know Revolut isn’t actually a bank.)
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