Monzo Staff Weekly Q&A - Valerio Magliulo (Product Manager - Revenue Team)

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Note : All Monzo Q&As to date can be found here :grinning:

Citizens of the Hot Coral Digital Domain!

Welcome, welcome! :wave:

I trust you wonderful people are all having a fantastic week? We certainly are… and it’s only going to get more fantastic as the week goes on! (make of that comment what you will :wink:)

I just returned from London having filmed a wonderful episode of The Bulletin with the one and only @matt :raised_hands: - We got to talk about all kinds of cool things like the early days at Monzo and our BIG LIST!

We’ve also spruced up our Instagram page a little bit so (shameless plug) you should go on follow us on there! Tag us in a photo with your Monzo card on display and who knows, you could end up on our story! Fame at last! :wink:

And what about that June update eh? Fantastic stuff. Massive shoutout to the one and only @bea for providing us with those excellent monthly updates to keep us all in the loop :grinning:

I want to tell you all a little story. It’s relevant to this Q&A. But first, catch up time!

Week 1 : Chris MacLean, Customer Operations & Vulnerable Customers :santa:t2:
Week 2 : James Nicholson, iOS Engineer :green_apple:
Week 3 : Tara Mansfield, People Operations Manager :woman_technologist:t5::man_technologist:t3:
Week 4 : James Routley, Backend Engineer :hammer_and_wrench:
Week 5 : Hugh Wells, Customer Operations :policeman:t3:‍♂
Week 6 : Naz Malik, Technical Specialist :computer:
Week 7 : Fred Morgan, COps Squad Captain (Calls & Social Media) :telephone_receiver:
Week 8 : Emma Northcott, COps Scaling Team :balance_scale:
Week 9 : Jarno Wolf, COps Financial Crime Specialist & Squad Captain :wolf:
Week 10 : Maria Campbell, Head of People :woman_office_worker:t2::man_office_worker:t4:
Week 11 : Jim Amey, Night COps Captain :bat: :crescent_moon:
Week 12 : Richard Cook, Online Community Manager :man_cook:
Week 13 : Beatrice Borbon, Content & Press Manager :newspaper:
Week 14 : Tom Blomfield, CEO :crown:
Week 15 : Ella Johanny, COps/Hiring :handshake:
Week 16 : Harry Ashbridge, Writer :writing_hand:t3:
Week 17 : Beth Scott, Overnight COps :cat2:
Week 18 : Georgie Parmenter, Executive Assistant to the Founders :blonde_woman:
Week 19 : Vulnerable Customers Team :sunflower:
Week 20 : Leah Templeman, Interim VP People :sun_with_face:
Week 21 : Daniel Chatfield, Backend Engineer, Fincrime & Security :closed_lock_with_key:

OK, story time!

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Last week I was having lunch at one of my favourite vegan spots here in Birmingham. As I approached the counter, I saw the guy behind the counter fiddling with his wallet, and I spied a card of Hot Coral!

I said “Monzo card! Awesome. I actually work at Monzo.”

He told me that was cool and asked what I did here. We had a short conversation about it and then I placed my order. Later on, as I’m finishing up my food, he walks over to my table.

“I’ve gotta ask you this. How does Monzo actually make money?” :money_with_wings:

Cue my reply : venture capital investment, per-customer economics, marketplace model, etc. All that stuff that many of you here know cuz it actually comes up quite a lot :stuck_out_tongue:

He was very interested and thanked me for my reply.

Why is this little anecdote relevant?

Because this week in the Hot Coral Hot Seat™️ we’ve got none other than Valerio Magliulo! Valerio is our Product Manager on the Revenue team! So working on the answers to that question is his job!

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Valerio has been here since October 2016!

He’s currently working on “Creating new innovative features that allow us to generate user value and revenue streams for Monzo. Currently focussed on Spread the Cost (short-term loan to finance large purchases) and interest on your saving pots”

Fun Fact About Valerio:

“I was once (very) briefly a famous popstar in Hong Kong. And I almost got kidnapped in Jaipur, India.”

His favourite thing about working here at Monzo?
“Building cool things, with cool people for cool users.” :sunglasses:

So there it is! Get your questions in for Valerio and he’ll be here later in the week to answer them! :bulb:

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when offering a short term loan how do you plan to educate customers on when to use a loan and when to use an overdraft?

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Do you see different interest rates on pots perhaps by locking pots for a pre-set time duration?

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Do you see potential to offset pot interest against overdraft charges (Obviously easier if interest was levied instead of a daily fee)?

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How about plans for foreign currency pots? Such as setting up a lot in €, $, ¥ etc?

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How do you decide which companies to include in the marketplace including the upcoming savings pots? Is it solely based on the best deal for the customer or are the ethics and transparency of the company also a factor?

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Cats?

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Pineapple on pizza?

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@simonb I’m surprised to see “venture capital investment” as part of your description of the business model. Do you consider investment as revenue?

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No, that was the first bit of the explanation whereby I explained that the investment sustains the company as we move towards profitability :blush:

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Do you try and ensure that revenue is generated in an ethical fashion?
For instance, if a company offers good money for referrals but you disagree with their stance on something ie environment, or sexual politics, would you turn that down straight or try and find a way to work with them that didn’t cross a boundary.

I might need to edit that for clarity. Bear with me.

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While reading about US neobanks Chime & Simple, they both make revenue from their partners willing to share interest margin and merchant interchange service fees with them :money_with_wings:. Are these 2 revenue streams that you consider(ed) for Monzo?

Also, following on from this, should the Transferwise partnership on international payments go ahead, will Monzo make some revenue from the mid-market rate charged on such transactions?

Thanks in advance! :pound:

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Interested to hear you describe how you see the interest on pots working.

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Since you started working at monzo in 2016. What’s the hardest aspect to deal with due to the companies growth?

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What happened in India with the almost kidnapping?

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Good questions all, keep em coming!

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There’s customers like myself who won’t make you money from traditional methods. For example, I don’t have an overdraft and don’t intend on taking up anymore. I buy stuff only if I can.

How does Monzo plan to make money from customers like me? I assume there’s a good amount of them.

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Starling have recently announced they are providing the MasterCard send service. Do Monzo have any plans to make their payment systems available to third parties as another revenue stream?

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If you were briefly a famous pop star in Hong Kong, can we have your autograph? :joy: could you sing in Cantonese?

Jokes aside, what made you get into fintech and what inspired that career switch?

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Will you need to be credit checked every time you apply for a transaction to use Spread the Cost? (I’m not saying customers would or should use it often, but if you used it 4 times per year that is still 4 hard checks per year on top of any other you might have had).

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