(Credit to KleranW)
Tom is busy this morning!
I think this fits in here, though it’s TV media rather than journalism!
In the second episode of the new season of Motherland (full season is on iPlayer) one of the mothers has opened a shop. She states it’s cashless and another character says “oh, I left my Monzo card at home”. Made me smile (more than most of the other jokes anyway).
I saw this on YouTube
Article in today’s Telegraph: RBS tried to buy Monzo two years ago.
Surprise surprise! There had been speculation in the media around three years ago that Lloyds Banking Group had approached Monzo. At the time, Tom Blomfield had responded to the rumours by joking that Monzo were not seeking to acquire Lloyds Banking Group
Looks like RBS still haven’t come to their senses about Bó bank either. That name is just terrible, we already have a B bank which obviously isn’t great either.
Is it a surprise to anyone? Not investors at least. Monzo is a bank to be sold eventually for many people, hopefully soon if that’s the case while the tech is still somewhat relevant.
My comment had been intended to be ironic!
Cause for concern?
I expect it’s going to be about Monzo Plus.
Is that bad enough to be a Watchdog issue?
Well, Watchdog are for running negative stories, and the plus affair had been the biggest hiccup Monzo have had so far.
There’s an outside chance it could be relating to account closures, but given all banks work to the same rules, and the timing, I don’t rate this one.
Put it this way, we’ll find out tomorrow.
It’s about freezing accounts.
There is a reply to the tweet above with a video of one of the presenters outside HQ with a Monzo card ice sculpture!
That’ll teach me.
I’ve set Watchdog to record now, will watch it after work.
Keeping an open mind now, but my immediate interest is whether Watchdog will justify why they’ve gone after Monzo for this over any other bank.
I wonder if there’s anything to it. We all know all banks close accounts but is Monzo proportionally higher?
Looks like it’s about all the frozen out accounts, doesn’t look great
Wonder if this is where it all started:
About 100 replies in:
Oh and for those asking how do they deal with the false positives - you get a message saying “Your account is now active, sorry for the inconvenience”. This has got BBC Watchdog written all over it. I could write so much more about what happened to me, but it’s starting to turn into a blog under a blog.
Putting aside any kind of prejudice, I’m genuinely interested in seeing how Watchdog justify this story - that is, why they think Monzo are acting any differently from other banks. If they don’t make any comparisons, questions will have to be asked.
“Unfreeze the lolly”?
That could be taken to be a suggestion from the BBC that Monzo should be unfreezing accounts regardless of any suspicions they may have. Wonder how that sits with the regulators…
I saw this and it made me think of how HSBC dealt with unusual transfers from my partner. I got a call to ask where the funds came from and why etc. In this situation do Monzo just freeze your account arbitrarily first and ask questions later?