I liked this little project and it’s such a shame teams are again being pulled into the things I’m not going to use (Monzo Plus and Business Accounts).
Gone seem the days when Monzo would develop things because they improved the user experience rather than their bottom line.
I mean, they won’t be able to do more if they don’t make more money some how 
Think it’s been pretty dead for a while.
I only got offers in the first two weeks. Nothing since.
This is such a shame - again Business Accounts is taking time away from other developments which we were told would never be the case…
Monzo Plus - something I doubt i’ll ever get into is now also being prioritised over something that all monzo customers can use.
There seems to be a lack of drive to improve the “bog standard” customer’s experience. I’m fine with a charge to profitability, but continued push back on things that wouldn’t make you money directly is saddening.
This 
Whats been released this year that wasnt business or plus related?
Cant think of anything else that I use anyway 
I’m not advocating fro things to be pumped out every week, far from it, I understand things take time and consideration, testing, QA etc etc.
But Monzo have spent a LOT of time clearly on Monzo Points, and have just shelved it - something that would make them different from the other challengers around them. Instead a Metal Card costing £70 to £90 is being looked at, or Plus is being developed further or Business Accounts are having more people put into the team.
It is just sad because it is like the “normal” customer is being forgotten about.
This is such a shame, especially as it was one of the main reasons I decided to go #FullMonzo. I’m also yet to see the real benefit of being a Monzo Plus customer (apart from having a nicely coloured card!) 
Suggestion for the 
team: Monzo Plus customers can have a £XX amount overdraft limit without being charged. My legacy bank offered a set overdraft amount charge-free when I added a bolt-on to my current account (similar to Plus).
Even some of the basic features that attracted me to Monzo in the first instance don’t seem to be being picked up any more, such as suggesting logos and merchant information. I trust this is simply because the focus is on launching the new nav as a priority, but it is sightly disheartening.
(All this aside, I still 
)
Either am i… i was more backing your point that we were told at the start of the year that BA development primarily would not impact on CA development and this hasnt been the case.
Since then there has been almost two thirds of the year passed and I feel extremely underwhelmed when I look back on whats been produced from monzo this year to date.
Payee Management, Monzo Points, Credit cards…all shelved before coming fruitful.
Also whats going on with loans… are they 
or whats the hold up
I guess maybe since the monthly updates have been removed there isnt as much urgency to be shown as producing results for development.
To expand from your list:
(I know, not Plus or Business, but for visibility) Monzo Plus:
Business:
I appreciate the list and there are some on there that had slipped my mind (ISAs being the biggest one) but some on the “normal” list if you like are still not ‘core’ features that all Monzo customer’s could/would use or benefit from.
Also some of those are “improvements” from inefficiencies in the previous feature that was implemented. There has been a stifling of genuinely “new” features in favour of profitability, which is a shame.
If something like the Big List was still out and viewable then it may be easier to swallow.
Isn’t this the entire point of the new UI?
What sort of things are you hoping for instead?
(Genuine question - and apologies if that sounds blunt. It looked starker on the screen then in my head!)
Thanks for doing the leg work. 
I’d say the only significant feature there is paying people with a link, it’s excellent. The others are half-baked, only for a small minority of people, or are more changes than improvements (looking at you Monzo Chat).
Sure, the new UI does improve customer experience, but it is still the same core set of features, just in a new outfit.
I was hoping for things like:
Not at all! I realise I hadn’t put my thoughts forward.
I’m not bashing Monzo at all, I just feel like we keep getting fed the same line with actually new features that get shelved.
This is a really interesting difference of perspective (for me at least).
To me, Monzo is racing ahead. The amount of new features, experiments and products they’ve launched in a short period of time if phenomenal. I can’t think of any other fintech or bank that’s done quite so much in a short period of time that’s had a positive impact on the customer.
But I do share some of your frustrations. The rapid pace of change does mean that some stuff isn’t finished properly. Or that a small extra step, that wouldn’t take a lot of time* but which would immeasurably improve the experience of using the app are missed out. Take, for example, being able to set the Monzo Plus fee to recur within Summary. Small thing, but a world of difference - and an impression that Monzo is on top of things.
But I think we’re in a balancing act between the need for break even and the need to improve the core functions. I think this is what @bruno’s squad is for: improving the core experience, starting with the home page as the foundation, then moving to budgeting (fixing Summary), then hopefully payments.
So I suppose this is a long way of saying that while I wish some core stuff is prioritised a bit more, I understand the pressures. And that they’ve recognised this with the platform squad, moving through the app giving it a lick of paint. And, comparatively to other fintechs, the feature set in Monzo seems to be growing / maturing at a faster rate. And don’t even get me started on the glacial pace of change in the high street banks!
*I don’t really have any insight into what’s small and what’s not in Monzo development terms. But a bit of polish is always good, and while I’m down for MVPs, it does something feel like squads could do with another quick sprint to add some polish before moving off…
I wholeheartedly agree, but when those tests/ experiments amount to “thanks we learnt a lot, but we aren’t going to do anything with that now” it is sort of a kick in the teeth, if they want to keep pushing ahead, they need to implement these things.
I get the feeling that people are thrown around to different teams as an when they are needed - which is fine, but I just wish things got finished a little bit more
This is kind of my point, how long have we had pots for? Yet they are still exactly the same as when they were first implemented (i’m on iOS). I’ve seen Monzo say they don’t push for parity because in effect “they know they can do it” but that seems a bit immature to me - why not push for the best customer experience as and when you can - as they seem to be doing this for things that enhance profitability (again nothing wrong with that).
And that is great, and I hope this squad acts as a sort of “tidy-upper” or “sweeper” for all the parity and “half-baked” (hate that word) features we have. But that is no use if all genuinely new and innovative developments are pushed aside for BA and Monzo Plus features.
What is 1.5% interest and holiday insurance to the % of customer’s who don’t use Monzo Plus? If you compare advancements in Monzo Plus compared to core CA or JA features since we knew about Plus, what has had more visible/ tangible features come to fruition? I guess that is where my frustrations lie.
I completely understand some things take priority and others need to sit on the backburner, but when the same type of things keep getting sidelined, it becomes frustrating to see.
But some experiments will work and some won’t. And some will reveal great data but show that more work needs to be done.
In the case of Monzo Points, we know that Monzo isn’t profitable and (I’m afraid to say) won’t be giving money away. So they need to look at the data and see what Monzo Points could do for them, what revenue they might get from retailers and what the opportunity cost it - i.e. could they be doing something else with the resources that brings in more income. Tough choices, but they sometimes need to be made.
As you’ll have seen in my earlier post, I’m all for a bit more polish and finishing things off. But I’m not sure that something being the same as it was is criteria for change. What else could a Pot do/be? Monzo is improving the interface (Bruno’s work) and adding new providers for interest bearing pots. And there’s something cryptically called a “partial pot” (I think) in latest teardowns. No idea what that is, but the point is that I’m not sure that no change = bad. (Unless it’s something needing love, like Summary, which has been recognised and is in the plan).
I suppose that’s why I was asking what you’d like earlier. If you’ll allow me to put my cynical hat on, most of us here are super engaged and using Monzo as our primary accounts. Monzo doesn’t have any inventive to do more for us - they have our business. The incentive is, instead, to reduce costs, ensure we don’t leave, gain extra customers and to move to a profitable position. If there’s a clear feature that can be pointed to that’d attract new folk, then that sounds like a goer (I think that’s the driver behind Bills Pots). I’m not saying that improvements for their own sake aren’t important - they are and Monzo knows it needs to keep ahead of the pack - but they need to be balanced with other drivers.
It sounds to me like there might a slight failure in expectation management. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if someone like me pops up to try and rationalise decisions - it’s still frustrating you. I think a clearer line on experiments and soon might help here.
Loans/Mortgage/Energy/New nav all are still not live though.
New payments tab was released and its been a bit of a fail.
Loans in particular is a bit of a mess and id love to know why its taken so long to finalise or what has been the complications.
I think maybe this is why Im underwhelmed. The big list done alot of things well that didnt need revisiting. This year in comparison it seems alot of the development work is simply foundation setting and saying we will come back to it.
Why was monzo points seen as a higher priority for example than cheque scanning if it was just going to be a proof of concept and not released? (Just an example)
This i think is whats lacking… monzo used to be good in having monthly emails, an ideas board and some sneak peaks etc.
This has all really been replaced with silence and the only instance where users are seeing something similar is with the new nav thread.
Oh for sure, and i’m not saying that they should forgo profitability - but that isn’t really what Monzo are saying to us. They’ve said the test went well, got a lot of feedback and are happy with how points went, but other things are of higher priority - not that profitability or further partnerships are the problem - if that is the problem, fine but be more transparent about it.
Well I don’t have pot history
I can’t transfer between pots
Locked pots need to be looked at again (we were told they would be)
Bills pots (In staff testing so that is a step forward)
Ability to switch pots on the fly when the minimum deposit is reached
Pot ordering
These are just a few things I can think of that would make pots loads better.
I just feel like we used to know and have a good idea as to what was on Monzo’s radar, now we get fed snippets here and there and sometimes it feels very haphazard.
I’m all for that, but I remember seeing that things like BA wouldn’t affect CA time and development, but that seems to not be true anymore - Monzo Plus is clearly where Monzo are putting their eggs currently, more power to them, but other things are now being teased and then dropped for that to push onward.
I’m frustrated but thank you for the rationalisation and can see that anyway, I completely get it and understand why things need to be done over others, but when something like points, which is really different and innovative gets shelved for what we can assume is BA and Monzo Plus development, it stings a little because how long until Bills Pots can’t quite get polished and so is dropped for another feature.
Bad decision to shelf Monzo points over Monzo plus.