Tbh, I feel like everyones give Monzo a break round here. But if we are frank and treat them like any other bank out there then this is poor. When Apple Pay was released I (and many other people) were outraged that HSBC was a month behind the other mainstream UK banks releasing it. Now if it took them that long to sort it out and people were extremely mad. Why the hell shouldn’t I be mad it took Monzo over 2 years?(Sorry everyones getting mad. I know the current account wasn’t out for 2 years, but thats how long they’ve been saying soon™) One of the main selling points when I joined was that this was coming soon. If it wasn’t then I probably wouldn’t have signed up / invested. And with the HSBC debacle they explicity said that it was due to a problem agreeing terms between them. So Apple didn’t stop them from explaining the delay. Why would they do that here? I’m not doubting there’s some underlying issues here with the service that’s causing the delay, but the lack of explanation is infuriating. My only reasonable explanation is that Monzo are working with Apple to provide a completely new and improved App / Apple Pay interaction. What that is, I don’t know, but when this is released it damn well better be something special to take 2 years and be under a rediculous NDA.
The delay was caused by Monzo switching from the prepaid programme to current accounts. Building Apple Pay for prepaid users would have meant building it again for the current accounts, since when those launched, Monzo switched to their own processor.
As for the NDA, Apple has different agreements with different companies that develop Apple Pay.
Sure, this is a great theory. But it’s just a theory until an employee actually explains the whole situation.
Honestly as it’s the most requested feature they shouldn’t have released the current accounts without it imo.
Monzo have not had a Current Account for over 2 years, they have only recently launched a Current Account.
It made no sense in development time or cost to launch it for the Prepaid card, then develop it all over again with the different in house systems and a further Apple approvals process for the bank account.
Lets all be honest. Nobody, apart for people who work direct for Monzo, know what is going on. For whatever reason, they’re not being as transparent about it as most other things.
I do however agree with @chrisdeeming though, that the situation has been handled badly. I appreciate that they say they will be treating it as a learning experience, but that seems to be the stock response whenever there is a problem (look back to the overdrafts debacle).
Seriously guys, follow up on promises to be transparent, work out exactly what you can, and can’t say, then say it. What doesn’t help is having rushed, poor statements like happened with the Apple Pay debacle today.
Whilst some people may not agree with me, and I am positive I will get some backlash from this, I am starting to feel dis-heartened with the way Monzo treat situations like this. I decided to invest in the company as I liked their ethos at the beginning, but recently, things have been getting worse. Features are slow to be rolled out, and comms are becoming poor.
I believe this is the thing most people are frustrated about…
They’re a little bit behind the curve in that case.
Who are?
I’m guessing it’s a reference to people who are frustrated.
Are you selling your shares, if so, how many and how much?
…Again, Monzo isn’t going out of their way to not be transparent about ApplePay. APPLE doesn’t allow Monzo to talk about AP integration due to an NDA that apple make them agree to. I’m sure Monzo would love to tell us when/if they plan to release support for this feature. (trust me they know we want it) You’ll wake up one day to tweet that says it’s now live and everyone might finally be happy.
It really must be frustrating considering they’ve built a community here which is so used to having conversations with staff about things.
Monzo are usually so transparent on projects, even if I disagree with some decisions, that I’m certain they’re being restricted from talking about AP so we can’t really fault them. Yesterday was a pretty atrocious piece of timing but things like that happen in tech. If anything, it’s just shown that AP is nearly ready!
I’m pretty sure I’m going to get shouted down here because I fear that stating anything other than glowing admiration for Monzo doesn’t tend to end well and it’s why I’m gradually becoming a less engaged member of the community… however, this post has so succinctly captured why I’m less enthused about Monzo than I was that, against my better judgement, I feel I want to contribute. 
I, too, joined because I was assured Apple Pay was coming soon and became frustrated when the party line changed to ‘we’d love to offer it at some point’ - indeed, I became so frustrated that I went to Starling. The slow drip feed of features, the apparent stagnation of the product, the lack of Apple Pay and my feeling that I was fobbed off - whilst there’s many and varied reasons for this (both actual and conjectural), all have zapped all my initial excitement about Monzo. I’m now happy with a competitor, and the launch of Apple Pay, when it comes, is no longer enough to get me back. Why would I come back to a company to merely gain parity with what I already have elsewhere and then wait a further 2 years for the Next Big Thing, whatever that turns out to be, to get developed while more agile competitors seem to be able to implement and innovate more quickly?
I want to be proven wrong, but right now - NDA or no NDA, a focus on CA launch limiting product development or not - Monzo doesn’t feel like the forward thinking company I wanted, doesn’t feel different enough to the Banks I left behind and that’s why - for me - there’s still a long road ahead to rebuild my trust because yesterday’s Apple Pay fumble and the response to it is a slow culmination of a number of things which have led me to feeling this way.
What outage yesterday? I didn’t see anything about this.
I understand where you’re coming from, although I’m still invested in Monzo. It does feel like development has slowed right down but I’m hoping that it will be cumulative; the more work goes in now the easier it will be to add features down the line. The Marketplace, Pot automation and the new Summary features will be great once they’re finalised.
Apple Pay is something of an anomaly though and granted it’s not been handled well but they can’t break an NDA with Apple so… plus it must be actually close since people are able to use it (if they were fast enough yesterday).
I totally get people’s drive to move to Starling though. For me, it all depends on them getting these other projects up and running whilst remaining transparent about it.
I meant the Apple Pay fumble, so I’ve edited the post to make that clearer. 
And yes, maybe this is the lull before Monzo become the company I thought they were, but based on what I’ve observed this year I’m not convinced…
Ahh sorry, I see now. Thought people trying to add Apple Pay made Monzo explode or something 
I have to say, I agree with this, been noticing more and more, there are a minor elements on the forums that don’t like to see people posting negative comments.
Tried this yesterday… didn’t like the app. Killed the account this morning, but i’m holding off for N26
Yup, again, I agree. There are a 1 or 2 features I like and could/do find useful, but there are also a few that I don’t.
TL:DR - All in all, I agree with what your saying 
Up until a few months ago I would have totally agreed with this statement and was getting a little sick of hearing “We’ve been dealing with the migration to current accounts which has slowed down development” (not very transparent really but did give a brief explanation as to why) but as of recently I couldn’t disagree more.
It might be certain features you are after that are slow to roll out or have not come out recently but they seem to be rolling out a lot of improvements to spending, pay nearby friends, changes to contact list and more. Whilst these may seem small or not useful in your particular case they are definitely releasing features quicker than they were 3/4 months ago
** Edited to expand on Monzo transparency
I’d love a more organised and detailed roadmap. At the moment development seems quite random. I feel like the Spending/Summary tab is the focus at the moment but it’s hard to tell what they are specifically improving. There have been some posts by developers but these get lost.
I guess I’d prefer it if they split the year into quarters and listed projects they wanted to complete and were planning to focus on in each one. Listing features that are dependent on other features working would be great too. The Coin Jar tidy up being dependent on other things is mentioned but I guess only a handful actually know why and specifically what it’s waiting for.
The roadmap at the moment is just bunch of features with vague estimates that seem to jump about.
Basically I wanna see your long term development goals. At least for this year and early next year.