I don’t have it yet, no.
Yeah - and assuming there is also a dedicated feed and statement for Flex transactions (rather than blended in with current account transactions), that probably covers the key features I’d want to have in place to start considering it as a credit card option.
However it raises another issue. If you choose to pay in full each month (because you want to treat it more like a traditional credit card), I guess you lose the flexibility of Flex (spreading specific payments over longer period). Thus, instead of going for a hybrid, it seems to me it may be better to offer two separate credit products: 1. a credit card with traditional credit card billing/payment options; 2. a separate product providing flexible payment options (Flex).
Or is there an option to exclude certain purchases from pay in full? i.e. default to pay in full for all, but retain ability to pick out certain transactions for longer term credit?
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You don’t lose the flexibility because if your default is Pay in Full, you can change any transaction to pay over 3 months or longer if you require.
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Never going to happen!
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How is that organised on the monthly statement/bill, assuming you get one?
Do you get one section for purchases on pay in full terms (pay on first statement cycle terms) and a different section for purchases on longer terms?
They are grouped, you don’t see pay in 1 or pay in 3 anywhere, it’s just a payment due for x on each active ‘loan’.
You don’t even see the name of what you’re paying for on a statement, just says flex.
Edit: more clarity below.
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It isn’t. The statement just has a list of purchases and doesn’t give you any indication of how you have split them (or not). It doesn’t even say where you’ve made the purchase:
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The statement is dreadful. So bad that it’s almost “how is it allowed to be this bad?”
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This would absolutely have to improve before I went anywhere near Flex. There’s no way I could show my employers that if I did expenses
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I’m pretty sure I’ve seen @TheoGibson or a colleague mention that they are working on this.
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For me sort of, but don’t have any connection to the main account, at all! I know this is a different opinion to many here, and Monzo will not likely build it, but they’ve conflated BNPL and a credit card and I personally see them as two different things.
So pay in full and seperate from the main account. It’s a hill I will die on.
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How does Flex work from an open banking perspective (if you connect your Monzo account to an aggregator)?
Does Flex appear as a separate account in the aggregator (like would happen if you connected a traditional bank where you have a current account and a credit card account) or are the Flex transactions intermingled with the current account transactions?
It does show as an account in some platforms, but I find in Lloyds app it just shows payments as ‘flex’ which isn’t helpful.
Not sure if it works better in full aggregation apps like Emma etc.
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In Emma it appears as a credit card account in its own right and behaves just like my traditional credit cards, i.e. full merchant information shown. The monthly payment just says “Flex”.
I should add that I’ve only used the card, though. I haven’t flexed an existing debit card transaction, so don’t know how that appears in the Flex account in Emma.
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Felix has it’s own dedicated feed. However, Flex statements just say “You flexed a purchase” with no extra info and so they definitely need some work.
This isn’t the case! Setting the default plan to “Pay in full” means each transaction flexed from the main account or any payments made directly using a Flex card are automatically set to be paid in full at your next Flex billing date; however, you can manually change each transaction to a different payment plan up to the first billing date for that plan. So the flexibility is still there if you want it.
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Fair enough. But surely this is something that you don’t like about Flex rather than Flex not being a credit card. If anything it seems like you are saying Flex is a credit card with BNPL features, which you don’t like; however, that still makes Flex a credit card - just not one you’re going to use?
Name me one other credit card that works like Flex, I personally am not aware. There was Tymit but this went business to customer.
We will have to disagree here. I see them as two very different things. Here’s how I define them
With BNPL you are spreading the cost of purchase over time and must have the funds available to do so.
With a credit card you are being advanced the money which you must pay back within a set period of time.
I can see other viewpoints and accept those, but in my books no matter how much Monzo say it is, it’s not a credit card.
Fair enough. I think it makes complete sense to say Flex is a credit card (with extra Monzo features), since it can be used purely as a credit card.
Just because Flex has extra features (e.g., BNPL options) on top of the traditional credit card features doesn’t stop if from being a credit card; for example, few (if any) banks had instant spending notifications when Monzo came out, but that didn’t make it any less of a bank*.
I think it makes sense to tick this feature off as done, then let people create additional feature requests if they want to have an option to remove the BNPL features of Flex.
*I know Monzo was originally a prepayment card, but the point still stands if you replace “Monzo” with whoever was the first bank that had instant spending notifications.
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Am still trying to understand how Flex functions as a credit card…
Lets say I open a Flex account on 1 September and make one purchase per day throughout September (30 purchases). With a traditional credit card I would expect to receive a bill for my September purchases in early October and be given a single due date (a few weeks later) to pay the bill (or a minimum amount if I chose not to pay in full).
Does the same thing happen with Flex (bill for September purchases with a single due date), or do you get 30 separate due dates (one for each purchase)?
Assuming you’ve set it to default to pay in full:
There’s only one payment date a month. Everything you buy up to 14 days before the payment date (1st of October) will be taken on that date. Anything you bought 14 days or less before the payment date moved to the next month (1st November).
I use it as a credit card with some extra features.
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