Is there a particular reason you don’t trust Monzo? As Ali has said, your money is guaranteed by the FSCS.
Probably much faster.
The current rate of fraud is an order of magnitude lower than the financial services industry average.
Further discussion on that article:
And if there is a fraudulent transaction, feedback on this forum indicates that Monzo will credit your account immediately once you notify them through the app. Also, because of the instant notifications, you’re more likely to notice any fraud that does slip through much more quickly.
They don’t face all the same issues as the Co-op, as they aren’t lending to large companies, investing, etc. At the moment, Monzo either puts your money on deposit with the Bank of England, or uses it to provide overdrafts to other customers. Full details:
One area where I feel they’ve been better than the Co-op so far is in transparency and communicating with customers. You might also be interested in looking at their Transparency Dashboard.
They do have a telephone number, but it’s not the most efficient way to get support from them. Instead of waiting on hold on the phone, you can send a message in the app.
In terms of upgrading or not, the fact is that at the moment, debit card top-ups remain free. If charges are brought in while the prepaid card is still around, I imagine they will apply to both prepaid and current account (though I think it’s more likely the prepaid will be shut down before charges are brought in). You will lose nothing by upgrading your prepaid to a current account, and will gain FSCS protection as well as the ability to use faster payments (which is a good way if you ever need to get money out of Monzo as well as onto it). Additionally, the support hours for the prepaid card have been cut back, so even if you continue using your card as you have been, you are better off on the current account.