I just spent two weeks in Bulgaria. Unfortunately could not use the card anywhere where they use Bulbank (Bulgarian United Bank) or Raiffeisen Bank terminals. It turn out most shops had their tills connected to either of those two banks. I tried numerous times at numerous supermarkets, shops, restaurants and coffee shops - got the same error - Card number invalid. The same goes for ATMs.
I used the card a few times on different ATMs - works perfectly fine with the notification popping up on my phone at the same time as the receipt from the ATM. The exchange rate was much better than most bank’s official exchange rate.
2 Likes
Hey Maria, I had a very similar experience!
I couldn’t find any ATMs that would work though – for me it was always failing. Do you remember which ones of the ones you tried did let you withdraw money?
Cheers!
Hey, Yavor.
For me it worked on Post Bank and DSK ATMs. I’m pretty sure there were a few others but cannot remember which banks they belonged to.
I’m going to Bulgaria in a weeks time, will test on other ATMs and let you know.
Many thanks,
Maria
1 Like
Thanks Maria and Emma,
I’ll be there in the beginning of August as well, so will try it out in a few places.
Cheers!
Hi guys I’m here and have found that it also works at Fibank machines.
I was doing a spot of grocery shopping yesterday and found it does not work at any Kaufland (supermarket) machines or at their tills.
1 Like
I went to Bulgaria in October 2016 and I can confirm that the ATMs from the following banks did not work with Monzo’s card:
- UniCredit Bulbank
- Reiffeisen Bank
- Investbank
- Central cooperative bank
- Société Generale Expressbank
The POS terminals from Unicredit Bulbank declined the card as well.
However, I had a successful cash withdraw from a First Investment Bank (FIBank) ATM.
3 Likes
To be honest, I’ve had similar experience withdrawing cash from UniCredit Bulbank, Reiffeisen Bank, Investbank, Central cooperative bank with my Barclays card.
It is strange as all the banks listed except UniCredit Bulbank and Central cooperative bank are foreign banks with branches in Bulgaria. Does this mean that they dont only work in Bulgaria but anywhere abroad as well?
I will visit Bulgaria in December and will test my card then! Hopefully the issues will be resolved.
1 Like
I was also not able to withdraw from Piraeus Bank, so that’s one more to be added to the list.
1 Like
Thanks for sharing this 
Just to check, are you a verified user & also, did you try enabling Magstrip withdrawals?
Were you able to withdraw money from any other bank’s ATMs?
Hi Alex! As far as I know, I’m a verified user, I’ve been using the card in the UK without any issues (including withdrawing cash and paying with it). On all Bulgarian ATMs that I tried, it failed. Tomorrow I’ll look around for any ATMs of the banks from which people had successful withdrawals.
As for the Magstripe withdrawals – I haven’t come across anything specific about enabling it, might contact support to ask for that.
1 Like
Thanks for sharing your feedback.
If you’re an iPhone user, you can enable Magstripe withdrawals from Card > Profile > Security. If you’re an Android user, you’ll need to ask support to enable them for now (& it wouldn’t hurt to check that you’re a verified user at the same time).
Please do let us know if you manage to figure out the solution
1 Like
Dskbank ATMs work as well.
1 Like
Any update with Magstripe withdrawals enabled ?
I’m going in March and had hoped to use Monzo only.
Some feedback on using Monzo in Bulgaria -
Note - I’m sharing this here until the post is merged, at which point this comment can be deleted.
2 Likes
I went in December 2016 and I can confirm about FIBank! 
1 Like
Hi, has there been an progress made on getting Monzo more widely accepted in Bulgaria?
Going skiing there and dont want to get caught out.
I would hope that now that you can enable Magstripe withdrawals (see above), you won’t run into the same issues that other users did, before this option was available. It looks like no one’s reported back after trying this out.
Just to let you know, my understanding is that any issues with acceptance are due to a combination of MasterCard & prepaid cards, rather than Monzo specifically so I wouldn’t expect there to have been significant changes on this front, since the last feedback was shared.
Ah ok. 50% of Bulgaria hates prepaid cards. Ah well I will take some cash as a back up and hope that I can find one of the cash machines that do work.
1 Like
That’s a pain, hopefully it’s not long now until Monzo launches the current accounts & debit cards which should solve that issue, by the sound of it.
Please do let us know how you get on!