Monzo Labs: Pay anyone by text or email

How do I access this? - i’ve looked under the Monzo Labs in my android app and I dont see this available to try… Thanks.

Are you on version 2.28?

no - 2.27 - but ive checked via the app store and no update is showing as being available…

You need to be on the Android beta channel :blush:

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thanks - knew i must be missing something!

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This does look good, and answers some (just some) of my other concerns over on the other thread.

For the “in limbo” amount, I’d be concerned I’d spend it before it was claimed. How about creating a Pot on–the–fly for Pay Anyone links and deduct the amount from my balance, placing it into this Pot? You could also show it in Committed Spending. Then when it’s claimed, and if there are no more links in circulation, just delete the Pot.

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about to suggest the same thing about having the amount being put in a pot

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Deal with this the same way that you deal with card authorisations that are never presented? Show the amount as having left your account immediately, and credit it back explicitly if the link isn’t used before it times out. (This has the added benefit that you get a notification as a reminder to contact the payee when they don’t claim the money in time.)

If you change to taking the money from the account immediately, this can just be a transaction in the feed. It would be a useful place to hang all the operations to do with the transaction: show status, get another copy of the link, cancel the payment, etc. as well as the usual options for categorisation and setting the transaction notes and attachments.

Can you do the same thing that you do when a monzo.me link is opened on a device that has the Monzo app installed, and get the app to handle the link directly? It could just go to a screen with a ‘Claim payment’ button on it.

In the web page source for a payment, some missing substitutions:

<meta name=“robots” content=“{{ .robots }}” />
<meta name=“description” content=“{{ .description }}”>

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Woah! Nice catch. Thanks a lot.

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Have used the full flow now

Observations:

  1. Need to be able to see it in scheduled payments or similar

  2. Need to be able to cancel in app without asking

  3. The share into WhatsApp should include the personalised message and amount

  4. The note in app for the transaction was the message, but cropped - should be in full

I don’t like the name - “Pay by text or email”
It’s a link and can me shared a multitude of ways not just text or email so doesn’t seem too intuitive to me.

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Already posted my feedback over on the Android changelog thread :grin::stuck_out_tongue:

There’s another thing: setting the name for the payee. At the moment this is left up to the payee: you aren’t prompted for a name when creating the payment link. The problem is that you’re trusting the payee to enter something useful like their name, rather than something meaningful to them (“HSBC current” for example) and not to you.

I’d prefer to be able to set the name shown for the transaction myself.

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I’m hoping with the new implementation of contacts/payees mentioned in the “Making Monzo: Add Payees Easily” thread there will be a way to merge and edit payees so this shouldn’t be a problem down the line :slight_smile:

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This would also help with remembering which pending payment was which.

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Thanks for the amazing feedback @sde1000! :hot_coral_heart:

:point_up: We discussed this approach. Doing this would require significantly more engineering work and push the Labs rollout to January. It’s not off the table yet.

:point_up: Yep it’s coming. Regardless of the first feed item affecting your balance or not, it will show you the status, link, and give you the option to make some changes/cancel that pending link.

:point_up: Working on it!

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It’s bad bad bad UX that the “Join Monzo” button is highlighted as the apparent default option when receiving. Dark pattern almost.

This is a feature for sending money to people who don’t have Monzo, not recruiting them to open an account.

I already generally get baffled responses when I send someone a Monzo.me link, this is just going to lead people to think they need to sign up to get their money.

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Yup, this :point_up:and the long URL would definitely put me off using it.

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I agree with @sde1000, this would by far be my preferred option (money leaving immediately). If it’s possible to do this work and then ‘upgrade’ the feature in Labs, that would be perfect. :ok_hand: :100:

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I cannot see this I’m on latest version and a beta user