Monzo is my primary account and I will need to transfer about £25K-ish to a solicitor in the upcoming weeks before exchangeing and just a little nervous about getting the transfer limits increased in a timely manner.
Lots of results on google around this topic showing from a couple years ago where it looked like you had to go through chat etc but I was wondering if anyone has gone through this recently using the app’s built-in ‘Increase Limits’ flow and what their experience was in terms of what information it needed and how quickly the limit raise was completed.
I’m hoping this is not that big of an issue these days with the built-in flow as well as the ability to use that to schedule a day in advance assuming my solicitors provide me with that date in good time.
Also the docs provided by my solicitor around recieving payment mention that they may ask for payment to be made via CHAPS if the time between them finding out the date from the sellers and when they want to exchange is short enough. Does Monzo even do CHAPS payments? dont see any mention of it in the app and dont imagine its much of an issue with Faster payments being basically instant anyways.
I went through it recently when the funds landed from a house sale. Tried to transfer more than 10k to a savings account and external accounts. It prompted me to request a raise. I did and within a couple of house they gave me the requested limit for 2 days. All fine and easy.
I’ll soon be going through it again when I pull the money back in to Monzo to pay for a house purchase so fingers crossed it will be as easy.
If you click ‘manage account’ form the … and then limits, you can request a transfer limit in advance rather than waiting until you try to make the transfer.
When I did my deposit (not from Monzo), the letter from my solicitor said to use CHAPS but the bank did via a fast transfer as it’s basically the same and there isn’t a charge.
The difference between BACS and CHAPS is becoming increasingly blurred now we have FP. I think the differences are that CHAPS has a guaranteed arrival time while FP does not? And also some banks put arbitrary limits on FP but not on CHAPS.
When I recently did this with my legacy bank the only difference was over a threshold it had to be chaps if I wanted it all in one payment (their policy I think).
Unfortunately my solicitors required it all in one payment otherwise they’d have done 2 smaller payments as FP
One question- I know you need to have the money in your account when you make the request. Does it being in a standard pot in your Monzo account count or does it need to be in your actual ‘account’ balance?
My experience sadly wasn’t as great as everyone here tells.
History - Monzo customer since Mondo days, use Monzo as primary account for many years, savings and investments all with Monzo. Never had any issues ever until today.
Needed a rate limit increase, the workflow worked perfectly, provided all the details and transfer limit approved (for the next day as requested).
Got the notification rate limit increased on the day, made the payment and my account got locked (first time ever) due to ‘suspicious activity’ and payment declined. Entire account blocked. - As you can imagine, panic.
The suspicious activity was sending the exact amount per the transfer rate increase, to the payee as detailed in the request.
Had to do a video to get my account unblocked and wait. Few hours later was sorted and account was back and payment went through on second attempt. Very stressful experience.
It feels like Monzo’s “algorithms” don’t connect the dot, it seemed the transfer limit increase didn’t factor into why I was suddenly making a large payment and triggered an account flag.
Sorted in the end, but VERY stressful experience. Makes me question if Monzo is truly the account for high value usage. They need to connect the limit increase to an expected payment due to go on the day asked for…
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tbutz
(🏳️🌈 Producer of "low value commentary")
19
I had the same experience a few months ago. Increase of limit process was great, but on the day when I came to transfer the money, the transfer was blocked and I had to provide selfie video and wait before I could retry. The wait was only about 45 mins in the end, but it was not a happy time.
Is this linked to the fact it was a new payee? Unknown. Perhaps if they force you to identify the payee at the time of the limit increase it could be flagged as non-suspicious for the purposes of the transfer.
In my case, the payee wasn’t new per say - I sent a £100 payment to it previously (and also a good time to check the details worked and money successfully transferred and received).
Though the amount and payee was as part of my transfer limit request which they approved - to the exact amount and payee.
I ended up putting in an official compliant this morning, not sure what will happen or anything from it.
While I appreciate they need to be mindful and “KYC” - It just feels the complete disconnect between pre-approving a transaction and then actually completing it. Why ask us to pre-approve anything over 10k with invoices and video verification, to then ignore it on the agreed day and flag it and lock out someone from their account?
As you can imagine, most people are VERY nervous and stressful on big payment days - and Monzo really shouldn’t be adding to the stress with a broken process. Makes me question if Monzo is really an account for anyone who a relatively modest income.
Out of the blue large payment? Fair game and good to verify with the customer that its intended.
Pre-arranged large payment with Invoices and pre-approval? Bad experience to then lock the customer out for doing something they pre-arranged.
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tbutz
(🏳️🌈 Producer of "low value commentary")
23
I actually had the same issue (blocked transfer, need to provide video verification to re-enable account) sometime after my v large (well, for me!) transfer. On this occasion it wasn’t over the £10K limit, it was only just over £3000 in fact, and it was to a company’s business account whose name had the word “Plumbing” in it… (new bathroom)
Not sure why Monzo is so cautious, maybe it was because the money was in a Pot so I took it out and then did the transfer to a new payee, but it was a PITA. Again. I appreciate them looking out for me (well, my money) but when their processes interfere with what I’d consider normal banking activity it’s gone too far.
