Monzo - 2019 - Will it Thrive or Fail?

I appreciate everyone’s comments so far and it is very interesting to highlight the various opinions as to what the new year might look like for Monzo.

Would love to hear more from other Monzo community members on their outlook for Monzo’s 2019

I think their philosophy to design makes sense. What I mean by this is they listen to the community. This means that rather than the collective insight of a small team. You get the collective insight of several hundred people from varied backgrounds,industries and levels of finance. A bank such as this will only continue to grow if certain things are met

  1. Scale- The scaling needs to be effective and cost effect.There is no point scaling say 100 COps when you actually only need 10. Conversely they take time to on-board and train etc. So sooner they hire a business analyst for work efficiency or something the better.
    On that note
  2. Sustainable scaling - Number of accounts opened is one thing. Number of accounts that are dormant is something else. To this end there is the perpetual balance of how much expansion is too much? How do you make sure your product continues to grow without outgrowing its market. I think Europe is a good place to expand into but then there are language constraints. I.e all the English needs to be translated into whatever European language. How do you do that and what employment do you use. Do you use paid or could you rely on a community driven project?(Plus Brexit :hot_face:)
    Or you expand to America, but then there will be regulatory issues and expense.
  3. User research- user research needs to be diverse and inclusive. For example a re-examine of the PayPoint charge would be interesting. As for some paying cash into an account and paying £1 for the privilege that’s fine.For others, £1 is a lot and having a deposit limit is a limiting factor for uptake.
    Also needs to be looked is marketing and how people like to be market to. I.e if you’re a diehard Monzo fan who has been here since the Alpha/Beta and used 10 Golden tickets.Then there is no reason to have all of the marketing material in the world. However if you’re not you might appreciate the prompting but how much prompting is too much.(I.e don’t annoy your own customers,they like you keep it that way :hearts:)
  4. Patience - Patience how long is too long to wait for a new feature. A month, a year, a week.People have different tolerances e.g through some of the games I play I’m used to new content maybe every month or so. Also are hotfixes a good idea? I.e after the marketing issue things were fixed very quickly indeed.
    In conclusion,personally I could quite easily say that Monzo is thriving now.
    Its Metrics are better than most of its competitors with continued growth.
    It easily funded a crowdfunded round.(I’ve included this as a Metric to show the passionate nature and belief that Monzo users have in the product and ethics)
    It started to have savings POTS.(A sign of a Market place-whilst its got a poor rate of interest and withdrawal issues. Its Proof of concept)
    The CEO got an OBE(If that wont send positive vibes and free advertising/media coverage nothing will)
    I could also say its failing,
    its API needs some work.(Given its workable for some. I’m a bit of Newbie when it comes to REST API)
    IFTTT uptake is barely 10% of its user base(I want triggers give me more Triggers!! :see_no_evil:)
    Profitability is a concern(development etc) + Hello that operational deficit)
    Its failed to bring Cheque imaging( As my dad said (we were discussing Cheques for Xmas) why didn’t they do it sooner.) Its a priority thing(and regulatory thing))
    Marketplace and integrations with other things(Again its difficult , these things take time)
    TDLR : I think Monzo will continue to surpass people’s expectations but it needs sensible and adequate restraint
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I will try and comment on this later as i am out at the moment… but having a quick skim it is evident that you have made some very interesting points!

Will check back later.

Thanks @Ordog
I’ve gone ahead and closed the other thread with a redirect to this one, lets all try to stay on topic :slight_smile:

I’ll see if I can tidy up some of the posts above later.

For reference the thread that was locked does contain some interesting posts worth reading: Monzo, Where to next?

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This was mentioned in the blog about recovering the help chat response time. They have already started rework in this area based on experience

Believe the delay results from not being a clearing bank. The legacy banks already were on account of other activities, so could do that quicker

ONE QUESTION,
DO you seriously think monzo will be free forever.
How long Monzo, Revolut etc can survive WITHOUT FEES.
Next Crowdfunding coming soon.
I would really like to be heard from Monzo what is their plan.
I am sure Barclays are charging them for accounts they are giving to users. Even its 30p per account per month. Its still something.

Question is HOW LONG.


FROM MONZO’s OWN REPORT
The loss for the year before tax was £33.1m (2017 £7.9m) primarily as a result of an increase in our operating costs.

Our costs increased by £26.9m to £34.9m in the current year (2017 £8m) as a result of investment in the banking operations with the Company becoming a fully operational bank during the year.

What have you been reading friend?

The plan is all there. The report was covering the prepaid card era, new accounts make them money. Loans, overdrafts, savings integrations etc are making them money

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This might be interesting for you

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monzo use barclays as clearing bank.

Got a source on that one? :slight_smile:

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I’m fairly sure Monzo do this themselves…

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They don’t :slight_smile:

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nope they don’t

Source?

Got to have proof for these sort of things :wink:

Back in the prepaid days they use to use wirecard (maybe someone else) but now are funds are held directly with the bank of England

Monzo don’t do this themselves :slight_smile:

image

I’m sure that’ll change this year, Monzo want to offer cheque imaging ‘soon’ so hopefully there will be exciting news on this front :sunglasses:

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You got a link for that info? I know someone else clears their cheques, there’s stripe, and there’s a third party between them and FPS but all the rest is them

Otherwise independent

The prepaid accounts were Barclays if that’s what you mean

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:rofl: Its funny,

barclays is clearing bank. so monzo can have their sort code.

i am sure somebody from monzo can tell you what i am saying is true friend.