It’s not as though they’ve made the base account cost money now either, and you don’t have to upgrade to plus or premium. So not sure what the issue is personally, at least not yet, when we still don’t know how the existence of these offerings will impact future developments for the free account.
Judgement is probably best reserved until we see if they inhibit the base account from improving beyond its current state.
There existence alone though shows differentiation in levels of customers and services. Just the name alone “Premium” makes it feel as though you arent getting the best the bank has to offer. Surely that lowers expectations and feelings towards the basic account
So I agree with the results of the polls.
Most people don’t realise this, nor do they care. All they know is that banking certainly is free for many, if not most, people. Sure, somebody else is paying for it somewhere along the line, but most people won’t lost any sleep over that as long as they’re not the ones paying.
They’re also likely still paying in terms of monetisation of their data too, which is not something I’m fond of, and will be happy to pay for the service to avoid that.
I remember vividly receiving this letter from Barclays, and threatened to leave them over it.
But most banks, I was told, already do the same thing, and all other banks at the time were poor in the digital banking department so there was little choice, until the likes of Monzo started popping up. I always wind up going back to Barclays though, because I still believe they offer the best all-round digital experience.
I would gladly pay money for a superior current account that doesn’t do things like that.
I don’t know if Monzo are any better in terms of privacy, because I haven’t seen them say or do much of anything in regards to privacy, except an off hand employee statement on here regarding plus. But I would have thought, they would be shouting about it quite loudly if they were more privacy friendly. It’s a selling point, and to me, a vital one.
Remember that Monzo used to leak your personal & device details and app usage patterns to Facebook until some people (including me) kicked up a fuss and had to argue for a month with their (clueless) DPO before it was finally removed.
provides great service
Have you seen the state of Monzo’s CS nowadays? 
Haven’t forgotten! There never should have even been a situation where that was a possibility. The tone on here from a few employees seems to be one of a more pro privacy stance these days. But without anything loud and official, I won’t buy into it yet.
I’m one of the biggest moaners about it on here!
I also had a very poor experience regarding data protection, I’m still of the strong opinion that I was in the right but I gave up because I’m not going to get anywhere with their actual lawyers 
.
I could have been totally wrong and they were laughing away in hq at me the armchair lawyer 
As far as I know the GDPR has a major flaw in which it doesn’t actually allow you to sue (and proving damages in such a case is difficult anyway).
The worst you can do is refer them to the ICO which seems incompetent or unwilling to deal with very obvious breaches so beyond sending a scary letter to them the ICO is very unlikely to take action, however the scary letter or mere mention of the ICO has been successful for me in most cases.
I’m pretty sure you can sue for distress
. https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/data-protection-and-journalism/taking-your-case-to-court-and-claiming-compensation/
I wasn’t trying to sue them, initially it was a SAR that dragged on for ages with monzo refusing to give the info, one of the names on the correspondence was a senior counsel so I just gave up, knowing at least it seemed to have been looked at properly.
You can take someone to court for any reason you want.
Also GDPR is a European regulation, it’s implemented in UK law via the 2018 data protection act.
This is UK legislation and therefore absolutely applies in UK courts.
I don’t completely disagree with you: Monzo’s struggle to come up with a profitable business model in a low-interest environment significantly pre-dates the virus. However, you have to admit that the virus has further exacerbated this. Even the traditional banks are announcing head-office restructuring and job losses.
I’d argue that conventional/legacy banks are more affected by the pandemic than Monzo. Legacy banks have other products that are more at risk during an economic downturn like lending products or mortgages which are vulnerable to defaults. Monzo’s lending is relatively minimal and their core product is a current account which shouldn’t see much changes (the pandemic doesn’t magically remove people’s need for a current account, and if anything it raises the need for a fully-online current account).
No, but it does remove people spending money abroad, which is a large chunk of Monzos income from the fees.
It’s a shame that all these crowing and rather vapid “I told you so” pieces keep coming out. I still have my legacy bank account and the usability is still horrendous. They’ve pretended to catch up with the usability of the challengers, but failed as drastically as anyone would have predicted with an ocean of legacy tech. Did challengers reinvent the fundamental business of what it means to be a bank? That’s a total strawman, and a competent journalist wouldn’t fall into the trap of believing it. Challenger banks have changed the user experience of banking, massively, for the better. And the legacy banks are still drowning in their legacy tech, regardless of how many puff pieces they manage to get out there.
That’s right. I operate within my means and don’t pay for banking. Those that borrow pay. It’s the way it is.
Gave this it’s own topic. But felt it was worth posting here too to highlight how Monzo fared. Monzo have the joint highest customer score, which is impressive, but contrasts with one of the poorer product scores.
So where shall we discuss it? Here? Or there?
Covering all bases, thinking discuss Monzo’s results specifically here, with perhaps a more broader discussion in the other thread.
But yes, I see the issue you raise, didn’t think it through! 
I can’t find a link anywhere, but AWS have a TV ad running at the moment which mentions Monzo.