Monzo in Taiwan

Hey guys!

My girlfriend and I have just moved to Taiwan :airplane:! We are learning new and useful things everyday that I wish I would have know when we arrived like what types of restaurants, supermarkets, and ATMs accept our Monzo card :monzo:.

I thought it would be cool to bring all of these tips together in one topic and hopefully learn some new ones from other members who have used their Monzo card in Taiwan! :grinning:

A list of useful places that accept Monzo :credit_card: (please comment and I will add):

Basically wherever you see the ‘Mastercard’ logo!

ATMs :money_with_wings:
Citibank (only in multiples of TWD $1000)
HSBC

Tasty Restaurants :fork_and_knife:
BITE2EAT (Italian)

Fast Food :hamburger:
Master Fang (Bakery)
Flavour Field (Bakery)

Supermarkets :convenience_store:
Carrefour
Dollars
Costco

Shopping :department_store:
IKEA
H&M
ZARA

A list of useful places that don’t accept foreign cards :-1: (please correct me if this is dependent on which branch you visit)
7-11
Subway
McDonalds

Check out my blog http://www.thattravelblog.com for more travel tips! :smiley:

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Thank you for all the useful information :slight_smile:

I’m travelling around Taiwan with my Monzo card at the moment and it really is stressful trying to find an ATM which reads and accepts the card.

Have used it fine contactlessly at a few convenience stores (e.g. Cosmed) and supermarkets and have just managed to withdraw some cash at a Citibank ATM as many shops and night markets here only take cash.

Confused though that Monzo now says I’m not allowed any more cash due to withdrawal limits when I am not anywhere close to the daily £250 limit or the monthly £1000 limit. Any one able to shine a light on this?

Thanks :slight_smile:

Cash withdrawal bank of Taiwan worked fine for me a few seconds ago. No charge and different notes available, minimum 1000 NTD

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Hey- which bank was this with?!? We are heading to Taiwan in 2 days and will need some cash!!
Thanks in advance!

Hey, I have also just withdrawn from bank of Taiwan ATM without charge or any problems :slightly_smiling_face:

ATMs in the FamilyMart convience stores don’t charge for withdrawals in Taiwan

So you can withdraw cash in ATMS at family mart or 7-11. Contactless works for family mart too.

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I was in Taiwan 3 weeks ago and posting this in case this helps anyone.

Used Monzo 6 times successfully in various places, once using the card itself to pay for goods. I used Google Pay linked to my monzo card and I recall counting the seconds for the familiar ch-ching sound :slight_smile: . 10, 15 seconds for the lag I suppose for the signal to hit Monzo servers and back to my app. But it worked. I bought a SIM for 450 NTD at the airport upon landing (near baggage collection area) with unlimited data so Internet wasn’t an issue for me.

I didn’t use the card at any ATM for withdrawals so cannot comment on that. My travel tip is take a spare card or two from other banks for emergencies and carry some cash hidden away, search travel security products on Amazon and you’ll find affordable things to use. Safe travels.

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I’ve just returned from a trip to Taiwan, although I’m a US beta user, so I’m not sure how much of my experience will be different than someone with a UK card.

Paying for goods was hit or miss. Out of the list of places that don’t take foreign cards in the first post, I’ve only been to 7-Eleven, and they took my card through Apple Pay at some locations, but not others (the clerk at one store in Kaohsiung told me “We aren’t really cooperating with corporate on that, but you can try” while in Taipei it was “Can you tap it? Then we’ll take it.”). Taiwan Mobile took it fine when I bought a SIM from them, although I had to insert the card. Kaohsiung Rapid Transit took contactless (they even had a promo going, too- 30% off full fare on weekends if you pay with MasterCard) but Taipei MRT didn’t.

Aside from that, I mostly frequented smaller shops that didn’t yet take cards or only took cards through LINE Pay. For my cash needs, I found Bank of Taiwan ATMs to work fine with my card and be able to dispense NT$100 notes (good to have when at night markets). For the shops that took cards through LINE Pay, I found that while local LINE Pay requires either a Taiwanese bank account or credit card to verify your identity and get started, if you have a Rabbit LINE Pay account from Thailand (say, if you’ve been there before or even if you can manage to set one up from outside Thailand since it only requires a passport for verification), it can be linked to Monzo and will work fine in Taiwan. You may lose a bit due to multiple conversion steps (NTD->THB->USD/GBP) though.

McDonald’s and 7-Eleven take foreign cards now.
Hi-Life accepts all major cards.

(Retailers which don’t accept foreign cards: Family Mart, OK Mart, PX Mart, Burger King, Subway, KFC, Mos Burger, 50 Lan etc.)

Taipei metro doesn’t accept contactless cards at the turnstile but you can buy single ticket tokens at the counter. (since December 2023)
Plus you can only buy travel tickets such as one-day ticket by card. Pay as you go only available for Easy Card etc. Top up is cash only.

Taoyuan airport MRT, Kaosiung Metro and trams in New Taipei City accept contactless card payment.

All local bus systems don’t accept card payment.

Most small shops don’t have card readers but some accept Line Pay. You can add your card to your Line Pay account and pay with your QR code.

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Hi Jeremy & welcome :wave:

Thanks for the detailed report with :monzo: in Taiwan.

It’s several decades since I was there (and I hope to get back there soon) - what a fantastic place to experience!