Our all-new Savings Pot is here 🎉

[SouthseaOne (Michael)]

@delabere

we’ve added it as a Monzo Labs feature

What’s this in Labs??

[SouthseaOne (Michael)]

Ah, just seen the other topic. Move along

[SouthseaOne (Michael)]

Monzo are on an absolute tear right now. Things you love to see

[Chris_R (Chris Rimell)]

@andys

On Plus/Premium - think of this as a boost, here’s two scenarios:

Scenario 1 - you have 2k in your current account, and 5k in your instant access pot. On Premium you’ll get 1.5% on the 2k, and 3% on the 5k.

Scenario 2 - you have 7k in your instant access pot. You’ll get 4.5% for the first 2k, and 3% on everything after that.

We’ll boost the first 2k in your account with your paid interest rate, on top of what you get from instant access.

Sorry to go back to this @andys but I’m pretty confused about this and usually get this stuff.

Scenario 1 doesn’t seem to suggest a benefit/boost vs the advertised rates, and scenario 2 seems unrealistic as it’s not generally how people use their bank accounts - to maintain a £0 balance, and also loose out on the ability to use bill pots/virtual cards etc.

As an illustration of why I’m confused, based on what I’m reading there is an inequality between paying premium customers by about £60 a year (assuming 1.5% and 3% rates are maintained for 12 months).

Scenario 1 you’d get 1.5% on £2000 = £30 + 3% on £5000 = £150 (total £180)
Scenario 2 you’d get 4.5% on £2000 = £90 + 3% on £5000 = £150 (total £240)

Am I understanding this right? If so, I think it needs to be looked at again. I would suggest 4.5% should be the rate for the first £2000 across account/regular pots & instant saver with 3% on anything above that amount - meaning it doesn’t matter where the money is, everyone gets the same. Or 3% for premium so it again makes no odds, otherwise it seems like you’re penalised for having the money in a different place when it’s all counting to the same limit anyway…

Incidentally, I’ve not seen anything in the instant saver or premium T&Cs that explain how this works. The Premium savings summary is dated 7th Oct 2021, and the description specifically says it doesn’t include savings pots. So it all needs to be documented and made clear at any rate.

[Carlo1460]

Now in Labs: An easier way to add money to your account

Hello I’m here to let you know that we’re rolling out a new feature that significantly reduces friction in how you add money to your account from the Monzo app. We’re calling this new feature “Pre-approved transfers”. Add money Adding money to your Monzo account from within the app uses Open Banking to make a payment from your other bank account to Monzo. The main benefit of this is that you are not required to manually enter account details. This makes transferring …

Easier money movements

[Peter_G]

@Coolum

Would there be a way of creating partitions / splitters / pots within pots? This way all savings could earn the 3%, but within the pot you could see the different amounts for different goals.

So the more I think about this, the more I think this nails it.

The problem isn’t the product, the problem is the way that pots have been conceived.

I think taking a step back and making some adjustments would reap rewards:

• Instant Access Savings needs its own card up top in Overview (the new home screen) alongside Flex and the Current account (give it a name plsthx).
• When it has its place at the top of the hierarchy, it then makes sense for there to be pots that subdivide the savings account, too. There would be two sets: current account pots (which should share the interest rate and terms for the current account) and savings accounts pots (which share the interest rate and terms for the instant access savings account).
• Indeed, marketplace savings pots accounts could even have their own cards and potentially pots, too. Just change the “Monzo” wordmark to OakNorth or whatever. With hindsight, it was probably a mistake to ever label these as pots.

That would make things simpler and more logical, I think.

I think there’s more that can be done around goals and around the design, but that’s the crux of it, I think.

Basically, the new savings account is in tension with the design here. It can be fudged by offering multiple savings pots, but I think this is a better first principles solution.

(Cc @leepethers, @emmag and @andys)

[Alexxxxx (>50 categories pls)]

@Peter_G

When it has its place at the top of the hierarchy, it then makes sense for there to be pots that subdivide the savings account, too.

I love this. Perfect.

Also, as we’re talking about pots/division of money, and we now have another reason to keep money out of the main current account and in a pot…

I implore Monzo to stop penalising customers who have an overall positive balance with overdraft charges if their current account balance is negative. If I have £500 in a pot and negative £100 in my current account, I am literally not borrowing any money and not in any way indebted to Monzo.

To incentivise pot use (bills pots, locked pots, interest and savings pots, etc.) whilst simultaneously penalising someone who has an overall positive balance is just awful.

I will never stop asking for this because it is an inherently terrible system.

Second edit to say… maybe the idea of an overdraft/credit pot which I’ve seen floated before would help this? That way you could have your total balance at the top level, with one negative overdraft pot, but so long as your top level total was positive, you wouldn’t be charged anything.

[Stompy]

This is such a brilliant announcement, thank you to everyone who worked on it. I can’t wait to get the roll out

[Peter_G]

Totally. I think that has to be the logical conclusion.

I’m imagining the account “cards” on the new home screen being configurable to show the total amount in that account (so for the current account that’s the main account plus pots) or a subdivision (e g. the main account minus pots, or a specific pot).

Writing that was quite torturous - there’s no name for the current account excluding pots. It would be helpful to see it as a default spending pot. So you get the current account, then if you add a pot you see two things - a spending pot (the main account) that your cards and direct debits are linked to, then the pot you’ve just created.

(I’m tired so that might not be expressed as simply as I’d otherwise have hoped).

[RichardL (Rich)]

Okay so on the face of it, I think this is a fantastic feature and I’m glad that Monzo have finally moved into this space.

But - I really think that this is overstepping the mark of what a bank should be:

@andys

We’ve made the decision not to support bills, virtual cards, or scheduled withdrawals for this pot to begin with. The idea here isn’t to provide a mechanism to let you automate your money into an interest bearing account (otherwise we’d just pay interest on your current account) but instead give you a low friction way to start building savings habits.

You shouldn’t be telling us how we should be managing our money. Building in these restrictions has created something that’s vastly at odds with how many Monzo customers use their accounts and manage the money across their balance and pots. I really hope you take the feedback that’s been given in this discussion on board before launching fully, because you can already see customers trying to fit a square peg into a round hole in order to grab the interest.

Really and truly, you should put the brakes on the current iteration of this and just handle this the same way you handle interest on Plus and Premium accounts. It shouldn’t matter whether the money is in your main balance or a pot - interest should be paid anyway.

[JIMMWX (Village Idiot)]

It’s in labs now

[JIMMWX (Village Idiot)]

Two things on this. I agree and disagree, let me explain.

I think the decision on not supporting bills etc is a valid one, for the reasons given. If you think to any other savings account out there none (that I know) of offer this because their prime directive is for you to put savings into it. So In this regard I don’t think Monzo are telling anyone what to do with money, they’re simply providing a service.

But, as I noted above I think the concept of pots is different to what this is. Or at least I think it is. And this is where I agree. It’s not the same as other pots and that’s confusing.

I think this is meant to be a savings account. Not a pot, not a bills service but a savings account. So I’m in agreement with @Peter_G , it really should be sitting with the accounts as that’s what it is.

Whether you can then create sub pots from it, I’m not too sure but lumping it in with other touchable or service providing pots is for me confusing.

[PaulUK]

@JIMMWX

If you think to any other savings account out there none (that I know) of offer this

This is exactly how I use my Chase Savings accounts.

All direct debits that don’t fall on my payday are assigned to a savings account.

My energy payments are from a Chase Savings Pot. That way I hold the reserves, not them.

[Chris_R (Chris Rimell)]

@andys

We’ve made the decision not to support bills, virtual cards, or scheduled withdrawals for this pot to begin with. The idea here isn’t to provide a mechanism to let you automate your money into an interest bearing account (otherwise we’d just pay interest on your current account) but instead give you a low friction way to start building savings habits.

This all seems a bit of a mess. The implementation is half finished with littered references to scheduled withdrawals in the UI.

What’s more, you CAN actually use IFTTT to schedule a withdrawal from this pot, I’ve just tried it based on time and date. I’m theory then one could use the existing options to say every time I spend at retailer xyz and create it as a spending pot by the back door

I think you’re making it hard on yourselves by this strange decision. Ditch these artificial barriers, or fix the app and make them hard restrictions.

[RichardL (Rich)]

@JIMMWX

I think the decision on not supporting bills etc is a valid one, for the reasons given. If you think to any other savings account out there none (that I know) of offer this

I don’t see the requirement to follow what others are doing. I’d say there’s an opportunity to do something different here.

@JIMMWX

Whether you can then create sub pots from it, I’m not too sure

I kind of get the feeling that this is over-engineering a very simple problem. Paying the interest on the account + pot balance is much simpler.

@JIMMWX

I think the decision on not supporting bills etc is a valid one, for the reasons given.

Moving into the land of speculation, I wonder if the reasons we’ve been given don’t paint the full picture.

I’ve got a suspicion that this decision was made so that Monzo would end up paying 3% interest on a smaller amount of cash overall vs paying the interest on the balance. I imagine if they went down the interest on balance route, the amount of interest they’d end up paying across all accounts would be much higher, so they’d balance this out by offering a lower rate. It also makes me wonder if they can change path at this point now they’ve offered 3%… purely speculation though.

[JIMMWX (Village Idiot)]

@RichardL

I don’t see the requirement to follow what others are doing. I’d say there’s an opportunity to do something different here.

Oh for sure. I don’t disagree. Was just comparing to others (with the exception of chase)

@RichardL

I’ve got a suspicion that this decision was made so that Monzo would end up paying 3% interest on a smaller amount of cash overall vs paying the interest on the balance.

That’s about the size of it. See what Kroo and Chase are doing, and do the same but different.

[davidwalton (Hot Coral Analyst)]

@Chris_R

This all seems a bit of a mess.

I’m with you on the ‘mess’ bit, at face value. But the statement:

@andys

We’ve made the decision not to support bills, virtual cards, or scheduled withdrawals for this pot to begin with.

‘…to begin with.’ induces confidence in the launching of a product for the masses while holding back on the potentially-planned features. Which may - or may not- come later. Let’s see!

Test, test, test…

[PaulUK]

@JIMMWX

See what Kroo and Chase are doing,

Kroo pay 3.03% on their current account, but don’t offer a pots facility

Chase offer 0% on current account (atm), though strangely allow DDs and SOs on their 3% savings accounts (each with own account number).

This is why Chase wins for me, atm.

Santander down to a quid now, but never allowed scheduled regular transfers anyway, only individual one-off payments.

[Chris_R (Chris Rimell)]

Oh I agree it’ll get resolved, but hide the mess from the public would be good

It just feels like it was rushed out with a “we’ll fix that later” attitude. Nothing against iteration, but this isn’t my idea of iteration by leaving things in that you know don’t work (especially when you’re rolling it out to all customers and not just testing it in labs)

I don’t personally mind if it’s simply a saving account with no extra functionality in the end. I just don’t like broken things in a live product

[Coolum (Calum)]

Thanks for your reply!

So I have a slightly convoluted way of using monzo which might interest you (and any developers reading):

As a freelancer, I have a Monzo business account primarily because every time I’m paid, it chops 20% off for tax.

I then transfer that 20% over to my personal account to a savings pot with a high interest rate. The tax I will have to pay thus accumulates interest until it’s needed.

But recently I’ve started transferring the total balance of my business account in the same way, so interest can be gained on that too. The instant access thing therefore really appeals, because whenever I have to pay myself from my business pot, I don’t have to wait a whole day for it to land in my current account.

The new savings pot is a great idea in theory, but it still makes no sense for me to have separate savings pots with less interest, other than the fact I can visually separate the different piles of money I have for different purposes. I think sub pots is the answer.