Monzo Plus Roadmap for 2019 đź“…

Monzo Chat Monzo Plus
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:wave:Hi all, it’s me again! As promised in the other thread about Monzo Plus, I wanted to give you a quick update before the weekend. Thanks again for all the feedback last week. It’s really accelerated internal discussions and plans and I’m super excited to share what’s coming next.

As I mentioned last week, we’re happy with how early we’ve released Monzo Plus, because we’ve got a ton of actionable feedback already. But we failed to lay out the long term vision of a customisable and convenient bundled bank account with well-curated benefits and competitive pricing.

After much discussion, we agreed to share our internal 2019 roadmap for Monzo Plus with you to illustrate where we’re going with this. We are going to do our very best to deliver this roadmap. In sharing this, we’re trusting that you, our community and in many cases shareholders, understand that some things may still slip or change. I’ve shared details where we have them. Where there aren’t any details, it means the decision hasn’t been made yet. Which on the one hand is good, because you can still input. But on the other hand it’s bad because we can’t answer your more specific questions. Without further ado, here’s what we’re planning to add in 2019:

  • Deposit interest
    We’ll pay interest on positive account balances for all Monzo Plus account holders. We’re still internally debating whether we should go for a high interest rate with a low cap on balance (e.g. similar to Nationwide FlexPlus with 3% up to £2500), or a low interest rate with a high cap on balance (e.g. 0.6% up to the full FSCS limit). This is definitely coming, but it may take a while to model it out and might require some experimentation.

  • Contents insurance
    This is a first for a bundled bank account. It’ll be priced very competitively from £5/month, and should be ready to launch in the next couple of months.

  • Mobile phone insurance
    Cover for whatever happens to your phone (loss, damage, theft, accidental damage, a drop in the swimming pool etc). Only ÂŁ6 a month to insure an iPhone X/Pixel 3 - half the price of buying the same insurance online. UK based repairs, and same day replacements.

  • Access to special offers and discounts
    Starting with a 10% discount at PureGym and a free Jack’s Flight Club membership for 6 months, but will expand and change over time

  • Cashback and rewards
    We’ll have some form of cashback and merchant rewards for all Monzo Plus customers - we’re just working through the exact shape it’ll take. Depending on how our Monzo Points trial goes, this might piggy-back on Monzo Points. You could, for example, imagine a points/cashback multiplier for Monzo Plus customers.

  • Virtual debit cards
    You’ll be able to create virtual debit cards to use for online transactions, for added security

  • Premium card material
    We’re definitely looking at Metal cards, as well as other more unique materials. I’m super excited about this. I used to hate the idea of metal cards, but then I held one of the sample cards and it just feels really nice.

  • Even better travel insurance
    Available to a larger age group and we’re working hard to get even better levels of cover.

  • Airport lounges
    You’ll get access to a network of 1000+ airport lounges. It’ll be really easy - just walk up with your Monzo card to enter. Depending on your Monzo Plus package, you’ll need to pay a per-visit fee.

Once we’ve added all these things, we’ll have a look at the overall pricing strategy to see whether it is working. If it isn’t, we will need to change it - most likely by increasing the price of customisations and reducing the base fee.

Because a few of you were asking, here are some fun stats about the rollout. So far we’re really happy with how it’s going. The waitlist now has 11,000 non-staff members. We’ve enabled Monzo Plus signup for 541 of them and of those 137 already signed up! We’re confident that things are working as expected and are ready to sign up 1,000 more customers next week. We haven’t yet decided how long we’d run the early bird discount (£3 instead of £6/month and extra swag and event invites), but we’ll do it for at least another week. We’ll also be announcing the first early bird events next week.

A few interesting facts: The most popular card colour is midnight sky (62%), followed by lagoon blue (25%) and the standard hot coral (13%). So far 14% of people chose the travel insurance bundle and 7% chose the cash abroad bundle.

Let us know what you think! I’ve started a new forum thread to focus discussion on feedback on the 2019 roadmap specifically, rather than the current offering.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! :v:

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Thanks for the very detailed update @jonas, I am sure it will put a lot of peoples minds at rest here!

I’m really looking forward to the mobile phone insurance, virtual cards & “premium” cards. :+1:

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Thanks for the update Jonas, this is shaping up to be a really nice service.

Just a minor query here - if Monzo’s liable for online transactions that’re made fraudulently (which I believe you are, assuming the user’s kept to the Ts & Cs), why not offer virtual cards to everyone, as this would reduce your losses?

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Plenty of us signed up in the first couple of hours and are still waiting for the invite, will we all get the discounted rate?

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One last thing: Please be mindful that we cannot guarantee that everything will launch exactly as described until we’ve actually launched it. If your decision to subscribe is based on a particular feature and you wouldn’t subscribe without it, it might be best to wait until it is actually launched :slight_smile:

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Hi,
Sounds really interesting! Just to clarify out of that would the interest, offers, cashback and virtual & premium cards be a part of the ÂŁ3/ÂŁ6 base subscription, and everything else be paid add on or not?

Thanks :grinning:

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This is really reassuring, so thank you @jonas. Transparency at its best!

I’ll be sure to sign up again when the 1st of the month rolls around, but before I do — will it be possible to sign up with the base package and then add these additional features to my Plus subscription when they launch?

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That’s what I took it to be. Yes. :slight_smile:

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I was wondering this too - what on the roadmap is intended to be included in the base subscription?

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Okay thanks!

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A very promising response to what was a fairly concerning launch. Thank you @jonas and Monzo for the continued transparency and communication. Safe to say for me the increased interest will make Monzo Plus a no brainer (casting my vote for high rate on small balance early :innocent:).

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This is looking good. Can’t wait for a metallic hot coral, and Monzo Points. Finger’s crossed I can try these out soon! :slight_smile:

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I’ve signed up to join monzo plus and like the look of the offering now it’s been shown above.

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The only thing I kinda disagree with is offering virtual cards only to plus subscribers. You’re essentially saying you have to pay for extra security.

Maybe there’s a high cost associated with generating virtual cards which I don’t know about though, I wouldn’t want monzo to loose money offering it for free.

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While I agree. I also think it’s okay as a Plus feature, because it doesn’t actually impact on the usage of the account. With the ability to freeze the card instantly, I’m not sure it’s as much of a security risk as thought – a Virtual Card is just as at risk to be fair also, as it doesn’t signify one-use, it’s just a card without a physical counterpart.

I think it’s a good feature, and will definitely provide a key selling point to Plus.

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Just wondering would this include the money held in the standard monzo pots, i.e. pots that aren’t already interest bearing via partnerships?

My first thought is that it would, but then they don’t count when it comes to deciding when to apply overdraft charges so it isn’t quite clear.

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I have to admit, I wasn’t really feeling the Plus element to begin with, but seeing the roadmap and potential features may have changed my mind. Exciting times!

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@jonas monzo plus is not for joint accounts? Is that right?
Metal+virtual cards, contents and phone insurance + interest on balance is all nice

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Already signed up for the waitlist form the initial post. This just makes it more exciting. As long as the pricing can be on-par/competitive, then I’ll still be all for it :raised_hands:t2::pray:t2::nerd_face:

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Hey Jonas, thanks for the insight!

Here’s my thoughts on it…

It doesn’t feel very “Monzo” to put what a lot of people would argue as a “basic” banking service, behind a paywall.

The high percent on a low balance (like NW Flex) would feel slightly better (as this is more of a “feature” than a basic service), but it’s not exactly reinventing banking… It’s just continuing what already exists.

Same day replacement is very cool! Who are you partnering with to achieve that?

I’d have preferred this to fall under the “We are a new digital bank, and this is what we can offer as standard, over your boring, old, tired banks…”

Otherwise, at the rate the legacy banks are releasing features which mimic the ones that make Monzo so unique, all of the new features from Monzo will be behind a subscription.

Really keen to know what other unique materials you are thinking of here!

Overall, I think it’s fairly safe way to go with Monzo Plus initially, and with the “bolt on” method, I’m hoping there will be some unique packages available that no one else offers down the line.

Lastly, will each of these options be an individual bolt on, or will they merge with other options to form a bolt on “package” so to speak?

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