I echo the thought that giving it a home on the Payments screens would be useful.
I also think it could make quite a good Spotlight on the home tab, would make it a great feature I could quickly show a mate when talking about how great monzo it.
Even better would be the ability for any Spotlights (including this one if it comes to be) to become options for widgets on my phone’s home screen. but that’s going slightly off topic.
It was the way I worded it. I’ve edited to make it clearer, so hopefully others won’t misunderstand. 
This is an assumption that monzo are monitoring yoor phone calls. Although I have no knowledge of this change, I would suggest it’s a flag activated by monzo when they are calling you and accessing your account details. I think this needs to be clearer though
I think you are right, but I believe apps can only get that information if you allow it access to do that. Which would still be a concern from some people.
I’m not a software engineer though, so I could be WAYYY off the mark… haha
Can someone please explain how this works in reality? It sounds good on paper but open to potential failure.
As I understand it:
I get a call from someone who says they are from Monzo
I go into my app and see it says ‘we’re not calling you’ because their systems are not currently making an outbound call to your number
Now this is better than other banks (who shouldn’t ever encourage the call in the first place) but isn’t this spoofable by the third party to make the app think you are being called by Monzo? Or am I overthinking this.
So far as I can see it, this is simply a status button which says if monzo is making an outbound call to you or not, based on their systems vs a fraud prevention tool. I appreciate it’s better than most banks and not aiming to be overly negative.
You’re overthinking. Monzo will either be monitoring their own systems, or the staff member at Monzo will be setting the flag. Unless the fraudster is working for Monzo or has broken into their systems, there would be no way for a third party to spoof anything.
If that were true then scammers wouldn’t exist at all.
Im sure there would be a way for someone to crack it, was just curious as to how the system worked (but realise that no one will ever say this in obvious details)
I think it would be good to see other banks follow suit with similar controls to help.
I’ll guess at:
So if you’re on the phone with anyone other than Monzo - the app will report that ‘We’re not talking to you’ - like it does if you go in app and look while you’re not on any call.
I’d guess at this being incredibly secure, unless as others have stated, there’s an inside job going on.
*I wonder if it is bidirectional (Monzo calls user - or - user calls Monzo) or one way (only when Monzo calls the user)?
It’s a great feature, but is it really an industry first?
Barclays have had a similar thing for a while where you get a notification from their app saying something like: “You’re currently talking to Joe Bloggs, press to confirm” and you then login and make the necessary confirmation. That’s quite clever as it works both ways: it helps the customer check that they are speaking to a genuine Barclays rep, plus it allows Barclays to perform some security checks on the customer as they must process the confirmation that it’s them by logging in to the app on their registered device using all the usual security of a full login.
Hopefully Monzo can expand the feature to also implement these approval prompts, as it would make it way more useful by improving visibility and security, while keeping things easy for the customer.
Sorry, perhaps I should have put “in the app” at the end of the sentence to make it clearer.
While scammers can SMS spoof to make your phone say “Monzo is calling”, they can’t do this with the Monzo app, so the app will always says “Monzo is not calling you” when a scammer is on the line.
I hope that clarifies.
So a few cents from me.
By and large my phone is a notification turned off zone - aint nothing getting through to me unless I go looking in the app, or you’re my other half sending me Cat Gifs.
I’m assuming you can detect status of “on a call” / “not on a call” through the device?
So if I’m on a call, and I open the Monzo app - display a small banner with a slim version of this interface.
If I’m not on a call, don’t. I don’t often do banking stuff while I’m actively on the phone, so I don’t think that would be too obtrusive.
But I’d want it to work agnostic of device notifications.
While talking of security / verification etc - this would be a super nice way to start having an app based “security test” when the bank do call me.
Rather than a cold call and “Can you confirm your details” type thing, a “Can you press accept in the monzo app to pass security” etc.
Not sure how monzo do that at the moment, but would be a good improvement.
That’s a cracking idea. Have something pop up at the start of the call which proves (via the in-app security) that it’s Monzo, then have Monzo push a verification ‘one-tap’ approval so they know it’s you. So there are no more security questions needed. Ever.
Make users aware of this check clearly on magic link emails maybe.
A minor concern I have is that spammers will catch on and ring off while transactions and the like are performed. Even without such features I have seen such things in those Jim Browning videos on YouTube
As others mention above I think all or most places that you need to authenticate should indicate this status, but I would go a step further and indicate either or both of when the last call from Monzo was and whether Monzo had called at any point that day
I do wonder though, fraudsters spend so long talking to customers they could probably talk them in to ignoring the warning.
Usually hear something like “we are investigating such and such at the bank so we can’t indicate we are talking to you in the app because they’ll find out” etc.
The amount of stories I hear from people, there literally no limits for fraudsters.
A bit like how they talk people around ignoring the scam warning when sending to safe accounts or accounts in different names rather than their own name etc.
I can sadly envisage that as well, but there comes a point where you can do no more. The app is nowhere near the point of doing all it can, and no effort at all should be spared. but once this feature and suggestions from the community and other forums are implemented then that goes a long way
Where next after that?
My suggestion of whether or not a call was received that day could also be applied to emails, for example
The banks cannot win, but as you say:
This is pretty much exactly how the Barclays system works. An approval notification with the name of the person you are talking to (which should match how they’ve introduced themselves), plus Voice ID, plus a recognition of your Caller ID, so very few “traditional” security questions - like the name of the cat your neighbour had when you were 7 - are required. Some of these individual factors could be faked or intercepted, of course, but in combination I think they are pretty secure.
The system also protects your details too from rogue employees, as Barclays advisors can only access the most granular details of your account once they have gone through security with you approving their access.
