No notification of TfL transactions

[ninepine (Mike Fuller)]

Used the card on Monday and got the usual 10p check within seconds. Today (Friday of the same week) have tapped in three times but had no notification. Is there just one weekly check by TFL? If so how can we track usage until charges come through.
A notification on each use would be good please.

[jasonyau]

register the card to contactless tfl to monitor charges and where you have tapped in and out of.

[JPiz]

Android Pay records your entries and exits so the information must be somewhere for Monzo to use.

[ninepine (Mike Fuller)]

Thanks for the suggestions. I can register the card with TFL of course but that doesn’t update my Monzo account. While AndroidPay captures more detail I suspect that this is as a result of what is captured by the smartphone and software neither of which are available with the card alone. Monzo only get the authorisation check which presumably TFL do centrally so no location data is captured either.
I suspect that this is outside Monzo’s control and we’ll have to wait for AndroidPay for more data and granularity.

[Naji (Naji Esiri)]

@ninepine Hey! TfL payments are transit payments which means that TfL obtain a single authorisation on the day of travel, and then calculate the fare at the end of the day (taking into account daily and weekly caps) and then charge you.

TfL payments are usually charged the next business day but they can take up to14 days, which would explain why the charges don’t take the same length of time to appear.TfL do not authorise each tap and which is why we can’t send you a push notification each time you touch in. Hope that makes sense!

[ninepine (Mike Fuller)]

Hi @Naji yes makes sense but is so different to the usual Monzo experience that it looks odd.

Great to meet you at the Monzo event yesterday.

Looking forward to seeing what @monzo is bringing to the party soon.

Can’t think of any other Bank that would buy customers beer and pizza.

[Naji (Naji Esiri)]

You too Mike, thanks a lot for coming! Hope to catch you at the next one.

Yep totally understand, it’s at odds with what a lot of people find one of our most helpful features- real time spending notifications. Unfortunately even once we issue debit cards which will be accepted at all offline payment terminals, the appearance of the feed item will still be delayed ️ Maybe there’s a clearer way we can show or explain this in the app though?

[Avishai (Marta)]

@Naji What data you have available when transaction is made? Is it literally nothing because payment was started in offline mode? Only when first contact with Monzo is made - when system goes online to process payment, this is when Monzo learns about transaction for the first time?

[Naji (Naji Esiri)]

We receive a ‘transaction certificate’ which used in the place of an online authorisation, so the transaction is still recognised by us at the payment stage-it just doesn’t show in the feed until processed!

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

That’s because you don’t have an amount to display for the transaction at that point, right?

Obviously you won’t know the final charge until TFL have finished totaling up your travel for the day & I guess you see that when they present the file?

[ninepine (Mike Fuller)]

Hi @Naji it seems a backward step but including the transaction date as a separate piece of data with transactions would be helpful as you move to debit card. With TFL the transaction date is detailed in the note on the transaction but this can be lost if you edit the note.
Current accounts aren’t real-time even if you don’t issue cheque books. (hope you don’t as we don’t need tech from the 1880’s!) so the beauty of the pre paid card is going to be lost.
That means credit risk and balance uncertainty for customers as transactions hit accounts via direct debit and standing order.
The ability to look forward to the standing orders and direct debits hitting the account tomorrow and in two days hence will be key.
That’s not difficult indeed HSBC has been able to report up coming direct debits due tomorrow for over 25 years. They just don’t provide the data in their app.
Exciting times!

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

@ninepine

Current accounts aren’t real-time even if you don’t issue cheque books. (hope you don’t as we don’t need tech from the 1880’s!) so the beauty of the pre paid card is going to be lost.

I don’t think I’m contradicting you what you meant here so just to clarify, the current accounts will be just as real time, when it comes to transaction data as the prepaid cards. Monzo will still force as many transactions as it can online & will be able to deliver the transaction notification as a result.

Direct debits & standing orders are additional features & I expect you’ll receive a real time notification when those are taken / paid too.

As you say, Monzo will receive a notification 24 hours in advance of direct debits being taken & I’d hope that they’ll notify users then too. Some alternatives, like listing scheduled direct debits (based on when they were last taken) in the app, have been discussed here too -

Direct Debit Spending Notifications

I think my suggestion is very close (maybe even the same) to what has been discussed here already so I didn’t want to start a new thread. Every few days/weeks I have a little heart attack when I remember that I forgot to check that I have enough money in my bank account that my bills get paid from. It would be great if Monzo could ‘learn’ what day of the month you usually pay what bills and how much they are. Notifications and integration with budgeting, as mentioned above, would be really coo…

@ninepine

including the transaction date as a separate piece of data with transactions would be helpful as you move to debit card. With TFL the transaction date is detailed in the note on the transaction but this can be lost if you edit the note.

Oh & I agree with this point too, it would be nice if the data was a bit more permanent