Our response to the BBC Watchdog report

Just to counter that bit - if you look at NCA reports on these flags, SARs, they get 450,000 flags per year, and 94% of them (based on 2015 statistics, may vary) are given ‘consent to proceed’ - i.e. the money is returned.

So industry wide there is far more reports than there are scenarios where the money must be confiscated.

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Nothing to counter accusations that you are worse than other banks?

We are all abundantly aware of your obligations but, to be fair, this isn’t the accusation laid against you.

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I’m assuming scenario 1 is: AI says something’s wrong and blocks account. Monzo employee reviews it and doesn’t find the transactions suspicious and unblocks the account

Scenario 2 is them doing a SAR and blocking the account until the NCA say close it. In which case it can take ages to release the funds somewhere else

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My concern here is who is the person doing the review within 10 minutes? What experience do they have to make the right call? Is there a team with specific training dedicated to making these desicions 24 hours a day or is it anyone on customer service?

2.7 weeks is a long time. It feels like this blog post just clarifies what you’ve said before but doesn’t open up any of the non case specific detail you could share.

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From the context, my understanding is that the former - an account reactivated in ten minutes - would be a case where they’ve determined it was falsely flagged and there is nothing to report to the NCA.

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The law is clear. Non specific anonymised general statistics are fine to publish. I’m not holding my breath though!

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That’s not what I mean - I mean it seems that proportionally speaking (when taking into account total number of customers) that the number of false positives seems to be higher than other banks. Which implies that there is a flaw with the systems used to detect illegitimate activity.

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Fair point - I guess until Monzo speak up on that point, we won’t know.

I mentioned in another post, I think it would be worth Monzo having some form of audit against their flagging system - if nothing else external demonstration that the flags are ‘industry appropriate’, and not set to 11.

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Perfect response to a blown out of proportion non-issue.
Now can we get back to what’s important? Building the best bank in the world :rocket:.

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Also, this bothers me slightly:

  1. How often is this target of reviewing within 10 minutes met, and how is this actually delivered?
  2. How is “suspicious” defined, and are the people doing the reviews perhaps given too strict a set of requirements? Because if it’s just “lots of multiple deposits” (which it seems to be, judging by the feedback) a lot of people can be subject to that, especially those who are self-employed.
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Monzo cannot answer this question. For obvious reasons - if they say what trips their flags, bad actors now know what to do (or not do) to get around them.

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Yeah it does seem like some sort of code/systems review should happen, even if it turns out everything is okay. Might help from a PR perspective if Monzo announces that, because at least then it’s just “oh something might have been a little bit wrong” rather than “oh god this bank is completely dodgy, fraud fraud fraud”

I’m guessing you’ve taken this to the regulator, what was their response?

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I thought I made myself clear but fair enough - by “how is it defined” I don’t mean can they say explicitly what behaviour is defined as specific. What I mean is where does the definition come from - is it decided internally by Monzo, or are there specific industry standards set by the FCA (or other organisation)? Literally what process does Monzo use to determine a specific set of behaviours as “suspicious”?

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We heard you the first time, stop spamming the same message everywhere when we’re all trying to have a conversation.

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OK I’ll bite. How about a poll?

  • Yes, the watchdog article worry me. I am concerned about my money with Monzo.
  • No, the Watchdog article doesn’t worry me. I am not concerned about my money with Monzo.
  • I don’t have a braincell and this poll is lost on me.
  • The watchdog article worries me. I am not concerned about my own money with Monzo but am concerned about the money of others, and also about the PR implication
0 voters
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Can you add another option to polls?

“The watchdog article worries me. I am not concerned about my own money with Monzo but am concerned about the money of others, and also about the PR implications”?

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When we do have to close an account, we aim to return any money as soon as we can

When we’ve reported an account and decide to close it because we suspect there’s financial crime, there are a few things we have to do next.

Monzo: We have decided to close your account.

What Monzo actually meant was: I think you’re a criminal, I don’t want to do business with you.

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I look at this differently though - and it’s not the case of ‘I love Monzo, they can do no wrong’.

What if the reason it’s higher is because the behaviour does actually look suspicious but legacy banks models and processes for detecting this are also, legacy and therefore didn’t spot it/don’t spot it as well as Monzo? If they did, we wouldn’t still be seeing such high numbers of fraud being successful!

@BritishLibrary I wouldn’t worry too much about John, he only joined the Money Saving Expert forums to start slagging off Monzo in the Watchdog thread over there. No mention of his missing money in those posts though… Something smells fishy.

[Edit: He’ll likely tell me that because I’m an ‘investor’ I’m a fool and in on the game]

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What’s your point? Would you want to do business with a criminal?

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