I think something similar was said by the CEO of Revolut too.
Are Monzo aiming to be a bank, or financial institution???
Oh you know me Graham. I care so much I don’t use Monzo, I prefer Starling. But credit where it’s due, Monzo is awesome, and the point I was making is people shouldn’t get bogged down in short-sighted feature vogueing.
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Mark Mullen from Atom Bank kept talking about he wanted Atom to become the Uber of banking, so it’s seems like a common notion for comparison.
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It’s amusing the OP is bashing the lack of innovation when there has been a lot and certainly a lot compared with more main stream backs.
Personally I also rate stability and uptime, you only have to look at other banks and Monzo generally has done well here. I’ve a nationwide account and I’ve lost count the number of weekends they’ve shutdown parts for work on their systems.
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I don’t think anyone is denying that Monzo are innovating. OP was simply pointing out that other banks have recently caught up and surpassed them in terms of features available. Nothing more or less than that.
I agree with server maintenance at the weekend. Neobanks are a breath of fresh air in that regard. But in real world usage, I’ve had more reliability issues with ATMs and card payments with Monzo and Starling in the past few years than I’ve had in the lifetime of my accounts with legacy banks.
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Now there’s a discussion topic in its own right 
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Not to put too fine a point on it but Monzo wasn’t first with a number of these.
Getting paid early - many banks have informally (or even officially) offered this for years including for cheques in some cases
utilising a large alternative network of locations for handling cash - you mean like having branches and using post offices?
paying a contact in your phone - you realise that both Pingit and PAYM both existed before Monzo was founded?
Multiple Pots - Intelligent Finance, Principality Building Society and others all offered this well before Monzo was founded. Other banks just let you open multiple accounts and you can usually custom name them if desired.
Etc, etc…
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But to their credit, it’s usually in the middle of the night.
I’ve had a Nationwide account for over 30 years, and never had an issue 
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Not recently, it’s been on Sundays and up-to mid day, I like the account but out of all the accounts I have, it’s the one with the most down time.
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I closed my Nationwide account years ago, but when I used them maintenance that lasted the entire weekend was not uncommon.
Maybe it’s just because I use it for salary in, bills out, I don’t notice as much.
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Like now, there is a problem with payments.
Yeah - and account balances 
I didn’t respond to this paragraph in my previous reply to the features you outlined in your first, in order to do some research and fact checking because I did not believe that Monzo pioneered any of these features.
- Gambling Block - you’re correct on this. I initially though Barclays pioneered this feature, but Monzo launched it a few months before them.
- Monzo.me - The only innovation here was Apple Pay and Google Pay, which have since been removed, whereas Starling still support them. Other services like this existed before Monzo.me, notably PayPal.me.
- Proximity payments - I presume you’re referring to the Nearby friends feature. Launch timing was identical Revolut’s
- Paying a contact in your phone - Pingit.
- Instant notifications - Perhaps a first in the uk, because I can’t find a launch date for Amex push notifications. But banks in other countries had this before Monzo even existed.
- Crowdsourced data enrichment. - Correct. I don’t know anyone else that is actively/publicly doing this in the banking industry.
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To be fair, not even Monzo appears to be doing this anymore. 
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To be honest the wording is quite vague. If you notice incorrect merchant data with a transaction, inform the bank, they fix it and deposit £50 into your account for the inconvenience, does that count as crowdsourced data enrichment? If so, Barclays have been doing this for many years.
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Very true. When I first heard of this it just made me think of how NatWest would pay me early when I banked with them. It was strange how Monzo flouted this as a feature because I’m aware of several banks which do this automatically and without fanfare. Definitely not on their website homepage. Not that it’s a bad ‘feature’ or anything.
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As a cynical person, I assume that’s exactly why Monzo advertise it. It’s just devious marketing with a fun UX to entice people over who may not be aware other banks, or even their current bank, already offer it. I must admit, I’m a sucker for that kind of UX, and that process of dragging the bank note into the wallet and the confetti animation was rather exhilarating the first couple of times.
As a side note (based on my experience with Barclays) people who receive their income on Mondays can get it from Monzo about 8 hours earlier, but if you’re paid on any other weekday, Barclays are about 16 hours faster. This is because Barclays process BACS deposits shortly after midnight, but do this on a Saturday for income due on Monday. I’d be curious to compare the speediness with other banks that offer this feature.
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When I was with Barclays Monday’s payments would go through just after midnight on Saturday. With Monzo you get it Friday at 4pm
All other payments were credited on the 3rd day of the BACS cycle where Monzo are 4pm on the 2nd day so unless Barclays have implemented a change since last May Monzo pay earlier
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