Great! Thanks
Are Monzo Plus Metal Investor cards in scope anytime soon?
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I hope the interest will be added to in addition savings pot interest as well so there’s not confusion of the best place to move spare cash.
I feel like it’s a positive thing to encourage separating spare cash into savings and I’d really rather not do the maths!
It depends on the individual
Yep definitely haha. In my case my monthly expenses are greater than £1k (https://i.imgur.com/sTmIPPP.png). That said, I do see the appeal of the 2.5% for up to £1k.
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If this calculation doesn’t include pots (not confirmed), which option do people think looks more promising once the committed spend pot feature launches (if it ever does)?
As this will effect how much you hold in your account for bills, if you use it of course.
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Personally - still remains the 2.5% on £1,000 - anything over the £1,000 you could just put into the new ISA/ easy access pots and you’ll get somewhere near the same interest rate. If I had a pot that was over £500 (half of the option I’d like) I’d turn it into a savings pot.
It would be interesting to know averages and medians of how much is sat in just the account (not including pots) on a monthly basis over all 2 million customers.
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I get the feeling (although this is just a guess) that they won’t be included as it technically isn’t in your “account”/“home” balance which I guess is what they’d be looking at.
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I’d agree with this, it would be confusing to say “for interest you earn it’s included” but “interest you pay on your overdraft it’s excluded” (presuming they didn’t align the two).
It goes back to the debate people had on the forum a number of months ago.
Personally I feel the current position on how it works is the simplest and thus the better way. If you’ve got an investec pot someone could mistake it for being included in their monzo balance and thus be confused at the annoying of interest they are receiving.
I hope this doesn’t start the debate again 
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It’s a shame Monzo can’t cover all case. I think it would be nice to have a tiered option. 2.5% on the first 1000, 1.5% on 1001-4000 and 1% anything over 4000.
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It just feels like to me it should be:
- "Is it part of your accessible, available to spend right now funds?
If the answer to that is “yes” - you’ll get interest on it.
If the answer is “I’d have to move it from my pot” - then you won’t.
If you can ringfence it from being spent, you’re ringfencing it from earning interest (IMHO).
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This is especially true now that there is a range of savings pot options.
I see your point but to me it just seems odd to disincentivise the use of pots and savings pots when to many they’re an important feature.
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This is my concern here. I think if they were to use your total balance in your account and non interest bearing pots that would be the ideal.
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I agree. If it’s in the same account, albeit ringfenced in a pot, it should be treated as one balance. That’s what I like about Starling’s implementation. Not only does it apply to credit interest but also to overdraft calculations too.
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All I am sayings is you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have it “ring-fenced” from an active balance (and if you have an overdraft your ability to go overdrawn) and then earn interest on it.
If it was used in both ways as @danmullen describes with Starling - that would be different as it wouldn’t be “truly” ringfenced. But as it operates right now that money that is in that pot, may as well be in another bank account, in which case you wouldn’t earn the interest on it.
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With Starling it is ringfenced - you can’t accidentally spend money from a Goal. You would need to move it to your main balance in order to spend from it. However, Starling take your overall balance into account when calculating interest and they factor Goals in when calculating overdraft fees, i.e. until your total balance drops below zero, you aren’t charged for being overdrawn.
That’s a much fairer way of doing it IMHO. If the money was in a completely separate account then I’d say it’s fair enough to treat it differently. But with basic Monzo Pots, it isn’t in a separate account.
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Apologies, I’m not talking about spending from a pot.
If a pot can be used to calculate whether you are overdrawn, it is only fair to then use that pot’s value to calculate interest. You are applying the same treatment across the board.
However, for Monzo, the overdraft doesn’t care whether you have £100,000 in a pot - you’re still overdrawn in your “active” balance and therefore you need to take some of the money in a pot out. Therefore the same treatment would be to not calculate interest with reference to a pot.
It isn’t a separate account, but it is treated as separate funds - which is why a lot of people use the pots, to separate out their money and move them into the “active balance” when the bill is about to go out.
I agree I think I prefer the way Starling do it (although it may become confusing with savings pots). But I don’t think the way Monzo do it is unfair as it is the same treatment across the pots.
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For anyone who is unfamiliar with Starling’s implementation, think of it this way. You have £500 in your main balance. You earn interest on £500.
You then move £250 into a Goal (Pot). You continue to earn interest on the full £500.
You then spend £300 from your main balance, leaving you £50 overdrawn. Your overall account balance, including Goals, is still £200 in credit, therefore you don’t have any overdraft charges and earn interest on £200.
To me, that’s the fairest way of doing it.
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As a non-starling user, this is a genuine question - do Starling offer variable rates of interest on a goal pot?
If no - then it makes sense to treat all pots as being part of an “active” balance.
If yes - this is something Monzo could definitely take into account. Although I can see the arguments for treating a pot as completely separate.
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No, it’s a single rate of interest applied across the board. Well, I say “single”… the rate is 0.5% up to £2,000 then 0.25% above that up to £85,000.