Time to answer my own questions:
What works well in Premium?
I really enjoyed Premium to start with. I would never pay for a metal card, but when I felt it, it just seemed so nice. I really appreciated the software features, and moved from Nationwide Flex Plus for the mobile and travel insurance.
On the software, and surprisingly to me at the time, custom categories was an absolute game changer. Connected accounts were, as predicted, amazing. Virtual cards were nice, but not revolutionary. And free cash deposits comes in handy.
What doesn’t work well? What needs tweaking?
The thing is, most of the above is now table stakes. And the bits that were transformative now aren’t so much and need, in my view, a bit of an update.
Take custom categories. They’re important and useful. But they’re hobbled because they’re artificially limited to 50. And the UI is a bit under strain - you need to work through the cognitive load to pick either from the alphabetical list up top (custom categories) or the one down below (standard categories). Why aren’t they just alphabetical? And then the category creation screen is fancy but I’d much rather see all the available incomes on one screen rather than having to swipe.
The same with connected accounts. If I’m paying money for them, I really need them to be as native as possible. That means notes, #tags, adding to tabs, splitting the bill etc.
But both of these could/should arguably be on the free tier.
On to the Premium exclusive extras. The offer feels very ‘me too’. The insurance is okay, but hardly Monzo class, either in terms of provision or the online experience. For mobile insurance, Assurant is just okay. But the cover is basic and the excess is high. A maximum of two claims a year is low. I’ve made a couple of claims and it’s okay. But just okay. And the handoff from Monzo to Assurant is again just okay. There’s an online portal, but you have to tap on “Register your phone” from the Monzo app to get there. Instead it pushes you to the phone, which when you call says to use the website. Granted you can’t control the Assurant process, but what about a properly labelled one-tap-and-you’re-logged-in-experience?
And speaking of experience, I still think the Premium tab is horrible. It’s become a dumping ground for stuff, rather than finding its natural home. And things - like offers - go there to die. I’ve gone through the tab’s failings in detail here:
Finally, we need to talk about interest. If you’re going to offer interest, it really needs to track the base rate. It was initially competitive, but it really isn’t any more. In fact, for me it’s emotionally worse than not offering it, because it now feels a bit like Monzo is taking the Micky.
What is Premium For?
So here’s the million dollar (or £15/month) question: what’s Premium for? In an era of increased interest rates, it’s in Monzo’s interest to make the basic banking experience as good as possible, so that more folk use it as their primary bank account. That suggests, to me at least, that a lot of stuff in Plus should just be free. The only exception is connected accounts, where you don’t want someone basically using the Monzo app with your Lloyds account with no revenue going to Monzo. So a free offering where you can connect credit cards and savings accounts feels good. Or just bite the bullet and make all of Plus free. I think it’d work out.
My conclusion
Premium needs an overhaul. It’s just about okay, but the time will come soon when I can’t justify paying for what’s a mediocre product. The software features should all largely be free (because that will increase the bottom line). But there are some exciting and different things that Monzo could do with its flagship account. I’ll post about that separately…