I was just reading this and thought to myself - phew, lucky I’m not with a legacy bank.
And then I realised: I don’t think I’ve seen an explicit statement by Monzo that they don’t do bad things (like investing in fossil fuels etc), and that they are aiming for Net Zero themselves. I don’t even know if they are, I just assumed that aligns with their values.
I’ve seen this page, which mentions the Living Wage, which is excellent, but nothing else.
Would they consider becoming a B-Corp, for example?
What else do we know about Monzo’s ethics/values?
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Anarchist
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As far as I am aware, they don’t invest in anything. All of their income comes from customers and money held at BOE.
Edit: To add that I don’t investigate companies for their ethics, but if something comes across my radar I might take some action. So I closed my Barclays account back in the day when they were supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa, but I generally assume that any big bank is behaving in a way I’d object to, and so I tend to swerve them in any case.
There’s some really good accountability in there, thanks @AlanDoe I’d love to hear more about this. This is something you should shout about.
I see ethical investments on this page, too, which is excellent. And that you’re campaigning for a gambling block for every bank - also a really positive use of power.
Maybe now isn’t the right time, with the post-pandemic financial crisis, but some organisations have a dedicated staff member pushing the company to go further. So it’s not just a fixed set of goals that you report on every year, but actively making the company better every day.
And their argument against free banking makes sense. They say high charges on the most vulnerable customers subsidise free banking for the rest of us. But their overdraft rate is pretty much the same as Monzo’s. And I can’t think of any other extortionate charges at Monzo. So that’s got me a bit
Monzo costs around £3/pcm to service an account. A high street bank costs around £20 (I think, figures from memory). Assuming that Tridos is somewhere in the middle, they’d need a monthly fee to compete with a free Monzo account, given the (presumed) cost disparity.
I’d find it odd that Tridos could service an account for the same value as Monzo (or Starling). Presumably customer numbers are much lower leading to a larger per account cost. And that’s assuming that the platform costs are the same, which would surprise me. But you never know!
I’m surprised at their charges though, in addition to the cost of simply having a bank account they also charge for: payment traces, CHAPS payments, making foreign payments, receiving foreign payments, debit card spending abroad (!) and debit card cash withdrawals.
Paying a flat rate fee to send payments abroad, no matter the value is pure legacy bank, as is the card spend on debit card abroad given they’re already making an increased interchange fee.
I think the reason people are hesitant is because we all know that if paying for an account was normalised, the big banks would take a monthly fee and continue to use predatory measures to increase their profits further.
Retail banks make money by re-lending your deposits. By giving them your money for them to re-use you are already doing them a favour. No need to do them even more of one and also pay just to hold your accounts. We also take loans from them, use overdrafts and other things that make them money.
The big retail banks are already some of the most profitable businesses in the world. They don’t engage in predatory behaviour out of some sort of necessity to survive, they do it to make even more money.
I don’t see why Monzo needs to pay the B Corporation to prove they are committed to good ethics and climate change. Actions are better than random titles so having a strong ethics policy and showing they are enforcing it is good enough in my eyes.
The company I used to work for used to pay Investors in People. It would have cost £2k to renew and we had a cashflow crisis so we didn’t renew. We still had the values of Investor of People, just didn’t pay the fee for a shiny logo.
I agree, and I wish all companies were as honest as yours was. But certifications are a way of external accountability.
Take the “fair trade” logo for example (I know there are a lot of issues around fair trade, but let’s gloss over that for now). I could say I’m paying farmers an honest wage, and no one would actually know. But if I have the fair trade logo, that’s a guarantee that I’m doing what I’m saying I’m doing.
(And yes, you could go to the advertising standards agency, but then who’s going to do the research to prove that a farmer in Senegal isn’t getting the wage you said you were giving them).
I’d love to hear more about this. This is something you should shout about.
This