It does and like I mentioned, it could still be a good deal for some. But it’s not suitable for me.
I already have contents insurance. I just wanted to add mobile phone insurance to Monzo plus like it was originally talked about - not having to add a bundle of things that I don’t need.
I could take out the bundle to get the mobile phone cover but I know having two home contents insurance products for one property can get complicated if I were ever to need to make a claim.
This is why a bundle doesn’t work for me personally.
I think the upset here is that Monzo made a big deal about selling this as a product you could just pick what you needed, it’s now turned into a product similar to what you’d find at other high street banks, and not even very competitive.
I spent a long time reading this thread last night and I do appreciate @tristan replying to us all. I get that these things have to be tested to see what works for Monzo. But I hope that the feedback is listened to.
I still really love Monzo as a bank and still eagerly try and get more of my friends and contacts to sign up. But I’d struggle now to recommend they go for Monzo Plus. It’s just not good value in my opinion.
I’ve got to ask… why does anyone think that Monzo will be able to offer anything radically different? The insurance market is already fiercely competitive and customers already have easy access to a huuuuge range of providers through price comparison sites.
I’m not impressed by Plus, but then I’ve never been impressed by a premium offering from any of the other banks, either.
Because offering add on’s is actually very simple, they are pretending its complicated because they don’t want to make it simple.
Launch 20 individual packages with only one item in each and have a price for each, then give you the ability to add them together. Very similar to how Barclays does it, you can chose one bundle two or three etc. Monzo would just need single items in each to be able to offer what it said it would at the start, a pick and choose model.
So to put it in simple terms, instead of the 3 packages they launched with they would break that down to 7 and people would pick and choose. Simple, and hardly complicated.
By going for a core option, they automatically complicated it from the start.
As far as insurance products, I knew we’d be seeing products from third parties. Such as the existing travel insurance. The only difference was being able to perhaps choose separate benefits to create your own Monzo Plus bundle.
I guess time will tell if this new approach will be popular with new users. I’m happy at least I get to keep the old version of Monzo plus, with my interest and travel insurance, until it runs out. Maybe by then there’ll be some tempting bundles for me to try.
I think we all need to remember that Monzo allow a select amount of customers to trial these things in order to make it better and explore the avenues to make it the best. The majority of banks don’t do this.
When packaged bank accounts first came about from the legacy banks, there were just launched to the public and a huge beeline was made to sell it hence why some now have the whole mis-selling label against them.
I’m pretty sure Monzo wants to avoid any mis-selling which is why it changes all the time until the final result means it meets a large majority of peoples’ expectations.
All feedback is god feedback, but let’s remember we’re all Guinea Pigs to make Monzo better.
I’m using Monzo as my main account and I also wanted to voice my concerns on the latest changes for the Plus product.
I’ve been on the fence for the last few months waiting for some issues to be resolved (card quality, flexibility in when being able to select the benefits, possible metal cards, announced benefits actually being released).
I especially liked that I could pay only for what I needed (bundles for these types of products always felt non-optimal to me) and the 1.5% interest would have made the whole concept of pots better for me, giving me the chance to use regular ones without worrying that I’m missing out on gathering interest.
The recent changes to the product coupled with the prices offered made me completely lose any interest in Plus. Time will tell if bundles will prove better for the wider population, but I wonder if it will make Plus look like an uninspiring product (although potentially useful for some people) that could have been released by any old bank.
I think it’s worth bearing in mind how legacy banks subsidise these sort of offers/deals - they have ridiculous charges for things like going into an unarranged overdraft, bouncing a direct debit etc.
Monzo don’t do this - so it means they can’t offer such ‘loss leaders’, but banking with them IS fair and transparent.
Sometimes we forget how much trouble legacy banks have caused its customers over the years both intentionally and unintentionally when it comes to its products, (poor) interest and charges.
They probably offer ridiculously low interest rates so they can entice new and existing customers with their own competitive packaged bank accounts so I suppose it depends what you prefer in your bank: competitive prices on packaged bank accounts and suffer the loss in interest and the hike in charges; or full transparency with proper budgeting tools and much better interest rates for savings along with the opportunity to actually be heard on what you’d like to see on Monzo.
I agree that it may have been too complicated for people but the idea of building your own package still has appeal.
I really disliked having to buy into Plus to then be able to choose the additions I wanted. The base “offering” was naff and felt awkward.
Almost every shop on the internet operates on the basis of adding products to your cart/account then checking out. I cannot see how adopting this method would be a problem for most people; it’s a standard process.
Because they so confidently announced and launched the Monzo Plus proposition on that basis, after stating on multiple occasions that traditional bundled accounts were a rip-off for customers. This was supposed to be different.
And because that’s the basis on which many customers signed up, and agreed to part with their cash.
And this comment encapsulates perfectly the problem with this community. You might understand intimately how banking works - how well do you think the other 2.5m customers understand banking?
This doesn’t mean dramatically cutting the number of options available, but rather presenting them wisely, as an in-store sales representative would do when assisting a customer. There are several efficient methods for easing the selection process and giving the customer the direction he needs.
Articles are always a great reference, but lets actually keep it into context, no where are they saying choice is bad.
I get what you’re saying, I do and agree that the “core offering” and then the add one didn’t add up too well.
However backend wise with managing everything this early on wouldn’t be easy for what they can do right now - yea sure other banks like Barclays have those options but they also have a bigger infrastructure to work with and hopefully Monzo doing these “packages” will allow it to grow better than the original plus offerings would have done. Then they could potentially add back more customisation (like they’ve said they’re keeping it as a potential)
I’ve been thinking about this more, and have come to the conclusion that for me, I only really signed up to the Monzo Plus trial as a supporter of Monzo, and to try out a different colour card. I also hoped to get some interest, which currently I will get until the end of my 12 month contract. For me I am making £2 a month from this, so I can see why Monzo have had to re-think things.
I won’t renew Monzo Plus when my contract comes to an end, but only because the equivalent bundle (the supporter) is more expensive than the early bird offer of £3 and because of no longer receiving interest.
I will still remain a Monzo customer, and just move my emergency fund back into interest pots.
I had never had a packaged bank account before but I can see that adding in the traveller at some point could be useful if I was planning a holiday abroad and for ease of sorting the insurance / additional cash withdrawals.
Thanks for your honesty Monzo - this thread is hard to read but shows how passionate people are about getting things right for Monzo.
I really dislike what Monzo done to already Monzo plustomers and the fact that they took the interest option away in the new bundles . The interest encouraged people to keep their money in the Monzo account, rather than keeping it with a legacy bank and using Monzo for spending. Monzo could have used that money for lending etc.
Anyway. It’s not all about me.
On the positive side, one of my friend signed up to Monzo plus since the change and he is well happy. People who didn’t know about the interest, probably won’t miss it.
I just feel like, there is a real need for the Saving bundle .
