Monzo switching bonus

Burner accounts have been around forever, basically since banks started bribing to keep your money with them.

There’s almost aways a time period you can’t have held an account with them to stop repeated switching. HSBC offer at the moment is only for those who’ve had previous accounts before 01/01/2015 or are new customers for example.

I personally really couldn’t care less if I’m costing the big banks by switching to them to get £150 here and there. They are there to serve me and I’m agreeing to their terms of offer.

In this case its stick with us at least 30 days to get £150, stay for the year and have another £50. It’s up to me if thats worth £50 to stick or if a better offer comes along I’m off. It usually doesn’t pay to be loyal.

If all banks completely stopped making these bribes, would I stick with them for their 5% interest savings accounts? :thinking: Maybe as its worth a £80-100 a year, still probably better to put a few thousand in shares if you have it spare.

Monzo’s slightly different as I have account with them based solely on them providing excellent service, app and budgeting. There’s no legacy bank that does this atm. I’m amazed First Direct came out top in the recent survey, they answer the phone quickly and are helpful but pretty crap in terms of website and app.

For now its handy keeping salary/dds separate.

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Perhaps a post by Monzo on A-B testing would be useful. By definition users will get different experiences and it’s really important that Monzo do this testing without the community getting all flustered. It’s not “unfair” to give users different experiences. Just ask yourself whether you’re happy with your own Monzo experience and don’t worry about what others are getting.

Monzo are making sounds business decisions on the back of this testing, it’s one of the things that differentiates them. We are part of their glorious lab, just enjoy the app!

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Damn. I just switched my previous main current account I’ve had since I was 18… :frowning:

I think I’ve pretty much had all of the incentives over the years from every legacy bank and it hasn’t made me stay with any of them.

I can’t do them anymore as I have done them all :rofl:

It’s an interesting test by Monzo but I really hope it doesn’t end up being rolled out, at least for as much as £50. I don’t feel like the product needs to be something so legacy to get people to switch to them.

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I’m getting instant transactions, nice app, friendly support, decent forum, budgeting, Google Pay support, and a nice bright coral card. All for free.

With Monzo, I wouldn’t mind if it cost me £50 a year (~£4 mth or 14p day) to have an account with them, let alone being paid £50 to switch to them.

I wouldn’t say that about any other bank atm, not even Starling.

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I think the problem is that because the forum harbours a feeling of loyalty, and because Monzo are “transparent” in other areas, a false sense of expectation is placed on them by some people (which is understandable).

With some things, it pays to get in early (a Monzo investment for example) - With other situations, it doesn’t pay to be an early adopter.

All of those people who have helped Monzo grow, contributed to the forum, submitted bugs, discussed what they had for dinner etc etc, are now watching people potentially “game the system” and receive £50 for their efforts.

Monzo needs to grow, it was literally their main goal from the previous report (for anyone throwing the “lack of transparency” card around).

You can see how hard the UK banking customer base is by looking at all the customer sticking with TSB after their issues.

I thought the £5 that was initially on offer for signing up was a complete waste of time - The £50 is still a hassle because of closing down your old account and instigating a CASS.

It almost caters for the people who were going to switch to Monzo anyway (in which case, the £50 is just an added bonus).

I guess the only thing Monzo can learn from is perhaps setting slightly looser expectations - I’ve seen comments along the lines of “you said you’d never do that”, which is true.

In the same way the “you can use your current account in the same way as your pre paid card” was true at the time.

Unfortunately, in a relatively short time frame, as the business needs evolve, those comments become outdated, and are used as ammunition as an argument against the new policy.

I seriously doubt anyone who goes to the effort of signing up to a Monzo forum, want them to bomb - So if Monzo can benefit from offering £50 for people to switch, and it actually makes a difference… Crack on :smiley:

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There’s concern that doing so would skew the data. I agree that finding out because a user shared on social media isn’t ideal either, though, and I’m hoping we can find a middle ground!

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Monzo were one vote short of being eligible to be ranked. Guess where we would have been :wink::raised_hands:

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If I’d have known I would have voted!

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It said there was a limit to how much of the £25 could be handed out. I switched an account over and it completed Tuesday and the money was deposited then, I’ve also decided to use Monzo more so setup a standing order for X amount to allow me to use it more.

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I think it’s to Monzo’s credit that they weren’t actively soliciting votes…

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Disappointing that I switched a single and joint account to Monzo a few weeks ago and didn’t get a switch bonus! Was it just random customers getting them?

Yup!

I honestly believe offering interest on pots would be a better and cheaper? way of getting people to switch to Monzo AND keep them there for the long-run.

A lot of people play the switching bonuses (guilty) by getting the money & switching to the next bank with a bonus & repeat.

There are so many people whose one gripe for not going full monzo is that there’s no interest - what is a switching bonus really going to do? Monzo will just become another one-stop-shop in a game of ‘Who can collect the most free money?”

Yes, I’m bitter. But also, from a growth and/or long-term ‘don’t just gain customers, KEEP them’ perspective - interest should be the priority over switching bonuses.

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I’m actually surprised that folk are so hung up on interest, and that people aren’t more generally happy to forgo the cost of a lattè a month for the superb features and service.

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I’m very happy with zero interest as the cost of running the account.

I think it’s the opportunity cost of the switching incentive that is the question here. In other words, could that money be used in a way to inventivise longer term use of Monzo than by paying joining fees which often encourage carpet bagging.

I previously thought that increasing interest for referrals would be good. Others objected to that on bait and switch grounds - but hopefully Monzo will be collecting some useful data to be able to make an evidence based decision. Or at least some more tests.

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Forget interest savings (sorry Monzo, I love you) get yourself a Freetrade account and make serious money.

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Or lose serious money!

< generic voice-over artist >

Your capital is at risk. The value of your investment might go down as well as up

< / generic voice-over artist >

:wink:

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Yes, this is also true.

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