To me, it seems that a pot canāt do anything directly because it isnāt an account in itself.
Only the account under which a pot exists can have payments taken, receive money, etc. and thatās the big issue with pots.
A Virtual Card is a āpayment accountā - as in, payments can be taken from them - so by assigning a VC to be funded by a specific pot, it makes the specific pot able to act as a payment account. Clever really. The pot is still ādumbā but can fund a VC which is the payment account.
A pot can now be surrounded by 2 payment accounts - the bank account it sits under and the VC assigned to it. Pincer-move complete. This makes the Monzo account very powerful for automation and segregation of funds for payments.
I can see this would be confusing to some users though - itās very much on the tech-side of UX
I am intrigued to see how Monzo are going to communicate all of this to users when it properly launches. I personally got a bit confused yesterday when trying to work out how to reconfigure my set-up to make use of this, and obviously for people to feel the full benefits they will need to get on board with it. I also struggled to explain to my partner, who is less tech-savvy, what it all is and how he would go about setting it up. Would be good to have some example set-ups/use cases.
I guess maybe I found it more complicated because I didnāt full grasp the concept of how a virtual pot and bills pot work together. Through trial and error I realised that I can set up a virtual card linked to a pot and then move my bills into being paid from the same pot. Prior to that I had thought that my bills pot and virtual card with subscriptions had to be separate.
And on the concept of a virtual card, Monzo obviously appreciate that it isnāt easy for everyone to understand as I was asked to complete a survey by them a while back asking about how I might explain a virtual card to someone.
I think if youāve already got them set up or some other work around then it might be a bit more complex.
But if youāre starting fresh I think itās pretty simple. Use this new shiny card and the money comes from this pot. Use your normal card and it comes from your normal account.
I can see the āReconfigureā bit being really interesting.
As a feature, it sounds great, and as someone generally interested in the concept, I can see good use cases for it. Not sure if that would hold true for all users though.
It almost needs a āthese are some powerful use casesā explainer of sorts.
Iām trying myself to work on what the best way to integrate these into my day to day finances are, and Iāve not mastered it yet.
I do partially worry the limit of 5 will be the blocker.
Iām loving this. It has also given me a reason to sign back up to Curve.
Iāve got a Fuel Expenses Pot that I use for refueling my car on/after business trips and the pot gets funded by claiming mileage expenses. As Iām able to claim more than I spend, over time and with enough miles, this pot will help fund my next car.
I donāt necessarily need curve for that as I could use a virtual card added to Google Pay but thatās not really an option if I want to pay at the pump.
It would be really cool if down the line monzo could offer a similar type of physical card that could manage their virtual cards.
Yep and come to think of it aswell when I signed up to business pro I got a different card. I activated it in the app and it auto updated on ApplePay straight away
Awesome! Iāve always had to delete and re-add cards to get new Apple Pay designs!
But if Monzo can change it seamlessly behind the scenes without the user doing anything, then hereās a dopey concept idea! A card that changes colour in line with your trends and budget, to help keep you on track!
They wonāt need to bother with physical credit cards then because if you need to use a card you can transfer the money from the pot to your personal account if itās interest free on cash advances. It depends on how they build the product but this update with virtual cards and pots has just made Monzo so much better!
I used to hate having my NowTV and Adobe stuff declining because I didnāt know when to transfer the money!
