Except it was extremely limited feature wise. Great for what it was, but I am glad they made Monzo a full featured bank and added many of the things requested by this very community.
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That can be done without the mess the app is today. Perfectly easily.
The fact that some perfectly functioning major banks have simpler and cleaner looking apps and actually have vastly more products than Monzo do show this is possible.
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Whether or not the app is āa messā is subjective ā I really like the design and find it quick and easy to use (much more so than before the redesign in fact). But thatās my experience, I know itās not everyoneās. My point in the post above is that harking back to the design of the app in 2016 is pointless because it didnāt need to do very much.
One thing I donāt understand though is the implication in one of the above posts that the app no longer opens to a list of transactions. Mine still does.
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Wait what? Like you open your app and itās just a nice clean record of transactions and not a mess of pots/accounts/features? On iOS? How do I turn this back on 
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Of course your opinions vary, and clearly Monzo agree with you, but again I reiterate everything in Monzo right now could be done on an app that has a clean and simple look, particularly the initial transaction screen. Itās not āharking backā itās saying ālook at what made you great, and use that to actually become betterā.
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I just canāt get het up with the Monzo app being cluttered or hard to use. I tap the icon on my homescreen, and I can immediately see the balances and the last few (and pending) transactions of the accounts I care about. With the RBS app my transactions two taps away; with BoS thereās an upsell message after every third account and there are always āimportant messagesā to clear off (which require me to download a PDF and then separately open)
No itās not perfect, and is more complicated than it used to be, but i find myself using it far more than other banksā apps and happy to use it as my main account.
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Everyone who doesnāt like it as much seems to prefer the simplicity of the older version. But as has already been mentioned, it was only simple because it was just a current account with no other features (maybe pots).
Now they have Flex, subscription products, pensions, investments, joint accounts etc. obviously the app HAD to become more cluttered to accommodate this.
Each to their own, and Iām obviously not an expert, but given the months and months of developing (and iterating with the community), I just donāt buy the argument that Monzo could have done this simpler - they agonised over a lot of these decisions, and a lot of the decisions were made such that Monzo had the platform to build on going forwards.
From a business and customer growth perspective, it certainly doesnāt look like theyāve made the mistake that some on here claim itās been.
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It did not.
Hereās your account, hereās a tab for everything else we offer.
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Itās not as simple as it once was. Some people prefer the old, some people will complain about absolutely everything Monzo do.
It certainly could be clearer in multiple aspects but I donāt think itās as bad as some like to make out.
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I think this is a mass oversimplification and any UX/UI designer would agree.
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Agreed!
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The UX/UI get paid to do what they are told, they donāt necessarily agree.
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And yet, they are nowhere near as popular as Monzo 
Monzo could be even more popular if they had a less cluttered app. It was one of the reasons that I moved away from Monzo. It wasnāt a good app to use for me.
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Out of interest, where have you gone instead?
Use Santander, RBS, and First Direct. Santander is the main one. I just prefer simpler apps. RBS is probably on the verge of being a bit too cluttered but everything is where Iād expect it to be so I can cope with it at the moment.
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Cāmon man! 
Just look at their growth and NPS!
Monzo are literally going to eat RBSā lunch, have one of the most recognised and loved brands in the country and you want to argue theyāre less popular than RBS or other incumbent banks? We can debate preferences around functionality but that is a strange hill to die on.
Theyāre never going to offer a simplified version of the app, it would no doubt be too complicated to engineer and only satisfy a minority of users.
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That sounds unfortunate for RBS, I wonder what they are having for lunch and why Monzo is eating theirs.
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Some banks have more customers. I think Lloyds has 8 million ACTIVE customers.
Monzo has 10 million customers, 70% travel card customers, at best 30% full bank customers. (Total guess, but I recall being about a generous 20% when I was working there)
Figures are delusional and only make themselves feel good.
Banks should be banned from saying how many accounts are open, and be pushed to say how many use them as a bank, not a card or simply just to pay their friends.
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What planet are you on? A large proportion of the population have never heard of Monzo, especially outside London, and itās only a well recognised brand amongst 18 - 24 year old tech savvy people. Even a majority of Monzoās own customers only use it as a spending card, so donāt delude yourself about it being a most loved brand.
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