Just a thought on this one about potential issues, It’s not really a problem with Monzo but Royal Mail allows you to use a credit/debit card as ID for the purpose of collecting undelivered mail.
Just my thoughts that this is a bit sketchy (I think they should at least ask for something with your legal name on and or address) given that there could conceivably be some misuse of putting preferred names on cards.
Though of course they usually require the “we called but you were out” card (I’m not sure what would happen if you didn’t have it).
In this particular instance it’s because I didn’t put all my names on their form back when I got my licence because it didn’t really occur to me to put anything on other than the names I did use
One thing to add, if you are on the current account preview then you don’t have this. When you migrate and close your prepaid app you’ll be able to set a preferred name.
Thanks Daniel. This is a really good feature and I was able to set my preferred name. It now appears on Monzo.me too BUT is it possible to customise the URL too? Because in my case URL displays my full legal name and once the link opens it shows my preferred name? I know it’s only a minor thing but shows up every time I share Monzo.me URL with my friends and family
Has anyone managed to get the name that shows up when you send a BACS changed? I asked a while back and was told ‘not possible’.
My full first name, plus middle name (which nobody knows and I don’t particularly like) show up then just a couple of letters of my surname. I was told ‘the full name will be there it’s just a limitation of the other banks systems’ but that’s not much help when I’m sending money to people and they can’t identify me, is it?
They also said it was for compliance, which I find hard to believe as no other account I’ve had has displayed my middle name.
This will be changed in the next few weeks. We are required to send the
legal name but we can definitely omit middle names.
Thanks for the feedback
Some additional context:
We recently introduced a new profile service internally which makes this
kind of context aware name formatting a lot easier. Customers with preview
current accounts hadn’t had their profile migrated (this happens
automatically when you upgrade). This meant that services such as the FPS
service couldn’t switch to the new service. We’ve just completed a manual
migration of all of those profiles so we can start moving everything across
now.
I’m glad to see others are frustrated with the names on BACS payments as well as me. Not only does mine appear as Anthony when everyone knows me as Tony, my middle name can also be a surname and my surname doesn’t show up. How to confuse the hell out of people.
On the topic of ‘legal names’, in the UK the the legal process for changing your name is to start using your new name. No forms to fill in, just use it, Batman. The Deed Poll route is entirely optional and not a legal requirement, it simply gets a court to certify that you have already changed your name. So, the name on my driving licence is no longer my legal name (not used it in 20 years) but Monzo and other just don’t recognise that as the case.
Monzo gets this more right than anyone, using nickname as the embossing name, etc. A deed poll takes ten minutes and will sort out bank accounts, driving licences, passports, etc. It costs nothing and just needs you to find two friends to witness.