I lingered over this option for a while. In principle, I’m against paywalling essential features like this. But, on a purely personal level, I’ve grown frustrated with both the speed and quality of support.
So while I couldn’t quite tick the box for it to be a paid-for item, I do think doing something so that folk who use Monzo as their main current account get speedy and excellent support is required.
I voted that I’m fine with Monzo Plus the way it is.
Right now, Monzo Plus enables me to save more than £5 a month extra, so it’s adding value for me already. Cancelling would mean less money going to savings every month.
That said, I’d be disappointed if Plus hasn’t shown signs of evolving by the three month mark.
Out of curiosity, what happens if you cancel early? I thought it was a 3mth minimum term? Does Monzo just take the remaining months off your balance and send you a new coral card?
Interestingly I voted differently this time. I’m firmly unsure if I’ll
Keep it.
I think the only feature I now use actively is Virtual Cards.
Themes I voted for:
Pretty much all Virtual Card things.
Pretty much all “improve IFTTT” things (though I’d probably say that for the main account not plus).
Some things relating to better budgeting.
I still maintain that Categories / Pots / Budgets don’t all play together to be as powerful as they should be, would love this to get a serious overhaul.
Lastly I’m just looking forward to a Monzo update - how the launch has gone and what’s coming.
6 Likes
Anarchist
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9
They charge you £5 but refund your current month pro rata.
I looked at the features and decided it didn’t make much sense unless I had much more in savings earning interest.
A lot of my coworkers have Monzo (the earlier access to their paycheque attracted them) and I asked the ones with Plus what they thought of it and the consensus was it hadn’t been worth it.
They were not speaking about Monzo as a whole, just that Plus wasn’t worthwhile for what they have in their accounts, which was what I had figured looking at it. In a year or two at the rate I’m saving, the same features might start to look more appealing.
Mobile/tech insurance coverage, not bothered about travel insurance. However, if customers want travel insurance then it should be an option but for a small additional price.
For religious reasons I cannot accept interest payment, therefore give the option to have interested collected and paid to a charity partner at each month/quarter etc.
Quality of customer support has gone down, therefore for Plus customers better customer response SLA.
Not excited by the random offers with random partners/companies. Best to have a cash back on wider spend activity, for example % on supermarket and have agreement in place with the major supermarket, on transport spend which may include feeling and public spend, on utilities and phone bills if they are paid via direct debit, on gadgets (I believe Apple Card in the US offer discount to users that buy its products). It could be that there’s a cap on monthly cash back. This maybe a lot for Monzo to take on so maybe it can partner with someone like TopCashback. Or maybe cash backs could be an offer on a Monzo credit card, that’s if they have one in the pipeline.
Monzo need to start launching products that will help it increase revenue so I hope they start launching mortgages, cash ISA and shares ISA. Again there are partners they can use if they are far away in launching their own products. However, my point is so that Plus users can be given the following once the above products are live.
Discount on mortgage interest rate or no arrangement fee.
Reduced annual management fee on a shares ISA. If there are plans for a Monzo shares ISA. By the way shares ISA should be like Nutmeg, Moneybox etc where a customer can select their risk profile etc.
Round up pots can be automatically invested in to cash ISA or shares ISA at each month/quarter/year-end. If they have no plans of having their own ISA products then allow round up pots to be automatically invested once the amount reaches a specific minimum value (don’t want to be spending 10p, lol) to connected investment platforms such as HL, Nutmeg etc.
I don’t know your religion, but last I knew their savings accounts were Sharia compliant? Though I do like the idea of being able to donate interest. Interest rates are lower than inflation anyway.
I think they were offering some ISAs and stopped, same as easy-access savings, so hopefully that will change.
I don’t think they’re anywhere near being able to offer mortgages yet but I’d like to see a savings account geared toward home-buying. It could “round up” a percentage of your rent into it each month, can be added to (unlike fixed savings) but not accessible without penalty unless it’s being used as a down payment.
If they did ever offer mortgages I’d like to see more fixed rate interest and the option to repay more each year without penalty than the traditional banks. One of my family members is a real estate agent that regularly drops prospective home-buyers going after the immediately cheaper mortgage because they don’t understand in 1-5 years that same mortgage will be unaffordable.
Maybe in that case those that do not wish you receive interest have the option for it to be given to a central charity pot which Monzo manages and at each year-end it’s paid out to a charity partner. Also, each year a new charity partner is selected etc.
I think Airport lounge access shouldn’t be part of the basic plus account but an add on for a small fee.
Or even better packed add on with travel insurance so for example those that travel a lot and want travel insurance it should come along with that at say a additional £3 per month or whatever cost that monzo can get it for which is then the add-on price.
I’ve seen it with another card which I cannot remember but they weren’t offering free access to airport lounges but instead entry at a fixed discounted rate of £20 per person to access any first class lounge.
