The amount I’ve spent this month is a much more useful metric than the current balance, as I transfer money to my main spending account in smallish chunks based on need (to maximise interest received on my money), so the balance fluctuates up and down fairly erratically which makes it hard to visualise whats going on.
Having the option to see a spending graph would be great, in my mind this is a cumulative line graph of amount spent in the current calendar month plus daily bars to easily identify high spending days.
I’m not sure it would go away: although a full Mondo current account would allow me to consolidate to 1 account (I currently have 3 – rent & bills, “legacy” spending and Mondo), it probably wouldn’t stop me moving money around in a way that’s designed to keep the current account balance roughly constant and maximise savings interest on what’s left of my instantly accessible money.
I was about to start a new thread to suggest exactly this but instead will support @b.mannerings post. Mondo was pitched with the ability to help people manage their money well, but it’s not a savings product so having a scrolling interactive graph based on balance to me is no help really. I want to be able to see my spending pattern, but at the minute what I’m actually looking at is the pattern of my top ups. The two are completely at odds in terms of goals for me as a “customer” and what I’m looking for out of the product. For different reasons I top up in chunks on a regular basis too.
The big banks are starting to develop (albeit slowly and with mixed results of effectiveness) such apps and addons to customers account functionality. My own bank; Santander, have Spendylytics. It’s pretty rubbish really but the key thing with all of these is that they are based on spend, not account balance.
Yes, for me the growth of Mondo into a full banking product would go someway to fixing this as it would be my main account so the balance would be the adverse of my spend and show trends. That being said, basing it on spend surely deserves lots of “we’ll think about it”, because basing a trend, or the pulse, on balance right now doesn’t really help anyone unless they top up as if they were paid their salary/wage and only used Mondo, which as a beta product you don’t encourage anyway.
That’s the key. Even though the product is beta that’s exactly the pattern we are designing for.
I appreciate it’s a bit counterintuitive because we can’t encourage you to put all your salary in until we are a bank, but we need to build the product thinking on that use-case. So, I hope, that friction will disappear
I’ve thought a bit more about this actually having scrolled through my pulse.
I think the ultimate pulse would be, and this includes when Mondo is able to operate under a full banking licence;
A double trendline pulse that shows one colour for the balance and another colour for the spend. It’s the kind of thing that makes products like Money Dashboard so popular. For people to control their spending with an electronic tool of some kind, spend has to be part of the equation. Balance isn’t the same thing because a lot of people will have a balance that is higher than their spend if they are more controlled with their money, other people will have a balance that is lower if they are in the red. The two things running alongside each other would visually identify how well you’re doing with your spending as you’d be able to see how far apart or close together the trend lines are, and if they cross over then there’s some overspending going on.
+1 for having an option to have pulse with amount spent only. This would still be useful when you have the full banking licence, as wages can differ month to month and I would still want to track the amount spent regardless of if I got higher or lower wages.
Rather than starting a new thread I’ll add my thoughts here:
The balance graph is meaningless - even if you assume bulk payment at the beginning of a ‘month’, that amount likely changes over time (I actually very rarely get the same pay check twice). The only balance that matters to me is my current balance because it’s the only one I can use to make decisions about whether to spend (without doing some pretty intense differentiation of each segment of the graph in my head).
A spending graph would show me peaks and troughs in spending and would allow me to spot trends that a balance graph simply doesn’t allow.
Even in an ideal world where my month starts where Mondo’s month starts and I always get paid exactly the same amount on the same day, I am not going to leave all of my money there. For example some months I may save different amounts depending on a variety of factors (am I going on holiday etc).
I’d love at least the option for a spending graph!
We might do something similar to that, we’re exploring different options
I’m afraid that’s not an option at this point. The graph is going to be an integral part to understand your account status (overdrafts, future payments, balance evolution). I appreciate it currently feels a bit underwhelming but it’s just baby steps until we move to current accounts. I need to ask you for a leap of faith
