I don’t mean to target this at you as you obviously haven’t said it, but so often on this forum people are so quick to criticise the "legacy"banks and take glee in how superior Monzo is.
But that’s a two way street. It doesn’t have to be the absolute cheapest but it should be competitive on some vector (price, convenience, features etc).
So many of the best parts of Monzo are down to its structural advantages (digital only, lack of technical debt, built on modern technology and using internet economics) but no one gives old banks a pass for not having any of these advantages.
None of the products in the FlexPlus package - other than the account interest rate, fee-free foreign ATM withdrawals and £250 fee-free overdraft - are provided by Nationwide. They are provided by UK Insurance Limited (travel insurance), Lifestyle Services Group (mobile phone insurance) and Britannia Rescue (breakdown cover).
I completely agree here, I said on the previous Monzo Plus thread that I’m not sure how a plus account would work well for Monzo - the Legacy banks have the products already and offer great package accounts.
Again I agree, this is only a trial and the hope is that they go back and revise it and work on it to make it more cost effective for the customer with some more features in (loads of features that sound good were mentioned on the previous thread).
I’m not sure what you mean here - but all in all the Legacies naturally do things better.
But if someone banks with Monzo - they might not want to have a separate packaged account - therefore the ease for them is the feature they like.
I agree that the Monzo offering needs to be greatly improved, but I just think that it won’t initially be able to compete against the legacies. (look at the investec savings pot as a prime example - it was still used up even if there were better rates around).
So it may not be their own product, but they still have the power and clout to have the discussions with the insurance companies to create a much much better deal.
Monzo right now are unlikely to be able to have the same sorts of conversations.
I agree, I don’ think the offerings are that great - but I don’t think any offering will definitely beat the Nationwide offer. I think (well, hope) that Monzo take heed, add things in and reduce the price.
No – they aren’t good value, but they aren’t terrible. Take the £11/month plan: if you use the additional £200 of foreign ATM withdrawals, then the insurance is about £60/year. That’s less than the £65/year that you’d pay going direct through Pluto.
Of course, Pluto looks to be overpriced, and Monzo Plus isn’t competitive with other offerings from other banks, and that’s not good. But if you look at them on their own, it’s easy to see how Monzo arrived at these prices.
As I say, I’d probably be more irked if this was a finished product. But it isn’t, and it’s good to see some experimentation.