Hi
I am on the verge of changing my bank account to Monzo from Barclays. One thing that gives me cause for pausing though is that my other accounts, Barclays and Nationwide, both use a pin device for transactions such as paying a new payee for the first time. I think this is a sensible step to fight potential fraud.
Do Monzo have, or are you considering, using such a device to protect your customers?
Regards
Paul
No such device and if they did I’d move elsewhere.
You can use card pin or TouchID in the app to approve payments.
i moved from Nationwide cas i did not wish to carry card reader everywhere
pin to set up payments works fine & i love if you use your card online for the first time with a site, not user before you have to confirm it in app…
Agreed - I’ve just binned 5 of the damned things (Barclays, Triodos, Co-op, Natwest, HSBC Business) after consolidating accounts with Monzo. Hate them with a vengeance. Finger or PIN seems fine to me.
They’re a nuisance, especially with banks that just to look at your balance you had to remember the width of your great uncles middle toe and the number of hairs on his left butt cheek.
Then to make things worse you had to use this convoluted pin entry machine just to send your family member back the money they’d lent you. It was borderline crazy.
If we go back to pin machines, I’ll go cold cash. Stick it all in my mattress (this autocorrected to mistress?), Buy a safe, not have any money, only deal in gold, hell I’ll even sign up to Viola Black and Arro Money. Anything to avoid them.
Nationwide card pin thingy, yup, got one and a former M&S Bank (HSBC backed like First Direct) stupid pin thingy. Absolutely hate them, but needs must with Nationwide because it’s a main account and I’m not giving it up.
No such need with my Starling Bank account, facial recognition etc, perks of not being a legacy bank I suppose.
The last time I had to use one of these, I had to wait 10 days to get a new one as the previous one had run out of battery.
If I never saw one of these devices again, I’d be a happy man.
I like the idea of putting all my money in my mistress. But I think my wife might object…
A card reader is two–factor authentication (2FA) because it combines something you have (card) with something you know (card PIN) for the olden days of internet banking, ie. before apps.
With Monzo, when you set up a payment, the bank already knows the “something you have” (the actual phone) and asks for something you know (the card PIN). So the 2FA is already complete and there’s no need to have a card reader.
Indeed, Barclays and HSBC already have their code–generating facility built into their apps for when the customer reverts back to internet banking, so the actual card reader is redundant.
There’s absolutely no need for Monzo to issue these. Go ahead and make the jump to Monzo, it’s perfectly secure.
Thank you Jamie. As I haven’t used Monzo fully as a bank yet I was not sure of their procedures. Thank you for clarifying what happens when you set up a payee. Of course this negates the need for a device or app version. So I’ll set up the switch to Monzo soon.
In fact, Monzo’s 2FA is almost certainly more secure than the card readers, which have been known to have “serious security shortcomings” for at least ten years: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/bank_reader_insecurity/
The short version is that banks could have made the card readers a lot more secure, but decided to make them cheap, instead.
+1 to hating the damn things
Just to confirm that we don’t have anything on our roadmap to support these Chip Authentication Program readers.
We don’t have the app to support them loaded onto our cards anyway and for a variety of reasons, we don’t believe these provide enough added security for their inconvenience.
Very glad to hear. 
It’s on par with the legacy 3-D Secure implementations in terms of crap I never wish use again.
I recently took out a NatWest Rewards for salary/DDs and just to transfer money to Monzo. HSBC cocked up my CASS and needed to pay my mortgage that day which failed, but NatWest don’t send you a card reader when you take out an account, and only know you need one until after you click make transfer. The reason given was some people might not want to transfer money 
They also had no plans for in app number gen like First Direct, but they’ll add it their feedback.
The crazy thing is you can use the NatWest app to pay any payee that has had one transfer with the CAP reader. So it’s literally had only one use for the initial transfer to Monzo and now in a drawer somewhere. They don’t want it back either, waste of plastic.
I did have some fun with their chat support when they said the app isn’t secure if they let you set up new payees. I said that I’d be more worried if someone has chopped off my thumb to access it. 
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