Anyone know why a mobile number would be needed for monzo.me payments? I’ve had several people refuse to pay me that way because they feel it asks for too much personal information.
Monzo.me doesn’t require a phone number. The first screen asks for an amount, second for card details.
Payments inside Monzo (from Monzo user to Monzo user) are done based on phone number, but if you have someone else’s phone, it doesn’t really ‘ask’ for it. I’m not sure what your friends exactly mean… 
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Following on from that, here’s how Monzo handles your contact’s, in order to manage these payments -
but as Marta said, Monzo doesn’t ask for these details. As far as I know, the only option you have is whether to enable ‘payments with friends’ or not.
That’s strange. I haven’t done it as a non Monzo user for a very long time, so I can’t remember. But I’ve been told by a few people that the form requests a phone number and they don’t want to give it to a company they’ve never heard of. I’ll try and replicate it tomorrow.
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I checked my own Monzo.me page, before I posted, just to be sure it didn’t change recently. I was also doing a collection for leaving colleague at work two weeks ago, and I got some money via Monzo.me, I haven’t heard anything about a phone number being required. 
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From the 2 screens to make a payment, it doesn’t ask for a number.
Any chance they downloaded the Monzo app and they where in the process of signing up?
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A phone number requirement is probably why I was unable to pay a friend over the weekend. I had his email address, added him as a contact and he didn’t appear in the list despite restarting the app and even rebooting the phone to try to make it work.
Eventually went old school and gave him cash. It wasn’t a good advert for monzo really.
There’s an easier way to do this. No need to add anyone as a contact. No need for their phone number. From the Contacts button in the Monzo app:
- Click the Request button
- Click Customise or add a note
- Click Share Monzo.me Link
- Click Mail for email
…or share via another means.
And the recipient should see this:
If they already have Monzo (regardless of whether you have their number or not) the link should open in their Monzo app.
If they don’t have Monzo, they’ll go to a webpage that allows them to make payment, similar to that shown below:
Hope this helps.
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great explanation Johnny…a really good post
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Thanks, @anon44204028.
This is why I love the Monzo.me feature. It’s so easy to request money from others and get paid. It’s why I’d like to see this feature in the current account …when I finiallynget the current account 
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You used the ‘Pay Contacts’ feature rather than Monzo.me . For Pay Contacts, you do indeed need a phone number as its similar to PayM. @anon70107404 has posted a good walkthrough of how to use the Monzo.me feature
It’s a horrible UI though… you have to press a nonobvious button not marked ‘pay’ that goes via email instead of monzo. It’s no wonder both of us working together couldn’t work out how to do it.
Insisting on phone numbers is something I hate (and cannot work for me as nobody knows my real mobile number), and I hope it’s not going to be so limited going forward as it removes one of the advantages of monzo.
It is? I thought it was fairly intuitive.
You don’t need a phone number, as I explained above. For PayM you need phone numbers and that process is even more opaque and scary in my view.
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Well, the first attempt might be a bit clunky, but I found it a lot easier to just type my Monzo.me URL (takes 3 seconds, but that depends on first/last name length! 
). I often just type it on WhatsApp or skype to my friend and add ‘you owe me £5.40’ - and I don’t bother customising note and amount, plus changing WhatsApp → Monzo → WhatsApp.
I find ‘proper’ approach useful when sharing food/takeout bills with the flatmate (because of 50/50 split), or when I want my colleagues to top up our leaving present fund by £2 each (so I avoid ‘how much was it?’ questions).
If anyone else is told, by someone that’s trying to send them money via Monzo.me, that they’ve been asked to provide their phone number then could they ask that person to send them a screenshot of the screen so that they can post it here? It’d be interesting to see what’s causing the confusion here 
I wouldn’t call clicking on ‘receive’ followed by ‘customise’ remotely intuitive when there’s a pay button that doesn’t let you pay!
At least on the android version that screen appears to only allow you to request money, not send it, so doubly unintuitive because without your explanation I would never have guessed it was for sending.
I’ve never used a bank that used PayM so wouldn’t know, but the phone number requirement would make that utterly unusable for me so perhaps it’s for the best. What’s wrong with email? Mobile numbers change constantly, I’ve had the same email for 7 years (on top of that I may have one of 3 phones on me at the time, all with different numbers).
the pay button is for you to pay other people. Using Monzo.me is requesting money from someone else so makes sense.
Also you do not need to customise the link, sending monzo.me/XXX to someone is fine.
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It’s probably fair to say that different people use technology in different ways. I’ve had the same mobile number since October 1999. I’ve had the same email address since September 1999. (I’m so last century 
)
For clarification, you click on REQUEST to request money. This seems pretty understable to me, Tony.
The benefits of Monzo.me over PayM is that it is easier to use and the feedback gives the users confidence.
PayM is taking a leap into the unknown, for the user, and in my experience absolutely nobody I know has head of it and is only promoted by a handful of contributors on the Starling Bank Community.
On balance, I think :mondo: has executed this pretty well. I’m sorry you’ve had issues using it, it is easy once you understand it, which is why I posted images on how to do it for you.
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I have used PayM with my legacy bank to send money to my boyfriend. But I must confess I haven’t tried Monzo.me as a feature yet.
But we’re back to square one. The pay button needs a mobile number. I wasn’t trying to get someone else to send me money. I was trying to pay money to another monzo user. This should be easy!
Sequence:
I owe this person money. He tells me… he’s say about 3 feet away, no need for email.
We agree using monzo seems a good idea.
I add him as a contact.
It does not appear. We assume a bug in the app, restart the app, and ultimately the phone. No dice.
See if there’s a better ‘send money’ button, there isn’t. If you can’t get contacts to work you’re hosed. nowhere did it say it required a phone number - which would have meant I’d have just used cash and saved a lot of head scratching. It just failed to add the contact.
That’s a poor experience from an otherwise well thought out app.
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