I totally agree with your view of ‘constrained thinking’, hadn’t seen your linked comment but that fits the sentiment perfectly.
And if I take it a step further, to my second favourite thing to say about Monzo: Sooner or later, the user base will “mature out” of the offering Monzo has.
There’s a relationship there between the age and needs of it’s Average Consumer. As the users needs evolve beyond “spending card”, with investment products, mortgages, insurances, etc, I expect a large portion will move away from Monzo to banks with greater connectivity to those offerings.
The founders, at least one of them, wanted the hub as a centre of what Monzo should be. But as becoming a full-on bank took its toll, almost all of them have spun off. And replaced by experienced traditional banking leaders which indirectly introduces legacy baggage and at times it seems like Monzo has already morphed from a disruptor into a, erm…, regular bank.
The back-end tech still stands out as beyond the competition, and with extra innovative thinking, it could deliver what a lot of people need.
I really hope the early groundwork is built on properly to take Monzo forward quickly. Year-in-Monzo is a snapshot of what is possible - make this a real-time forward/backward data-fetch and the framework for forecasting and/or budgeting is possible - especially with Open Banking connections
PS> Thanks @Peter_G for another cracking topic for discussion
I think you partially hit the nail on the head with the KYC checks. As I understand it then it’s not possible to just ‘passport’ those checks between one provider to another, at least not easily.
What we might do for our KYC might be different to another provider with a different risk appetite, or might not allow them to come to a sufficient decision. For example say institution X doesn’t do CIFAS checks but institution Y requires them, or institution A does proof of address checks against credit reference agencies but institution B doesn’t like that method and prefers checks against electoral roll then how do you resolve that?
Do you start doing retrospective KYC checks, or does the partnership institution do them? If you do them, then if one customer is outside of the partners risk appetite then does the hosting institution exit their relationship with that customer, or do they just not offer the product?
If they just don’t offer the product, then what do they tell that customer? They can’t tell them they’re too risky for the partner institution, because that could leave them open for an accusation of tipping off. So when the customer complains that some customers get better deals than others
It’s a minefield…
(All the above is theoretical by the way - I can neither confirm nor deny what sort of KYC checks we do )
This sounds like a mess to me. Why would I want loads of options that all offer the same thing?
The marketplace is only going to be interesting if it offers a range of different products. There’s no appeal in marketplace that offers the same products under 40 different names.
There might be a place for monzo handling the front of house services, and letting other suppliers handle the back end, but - if the back end services are all the same - monzo need only partner with one supplier.
Customers want simplicity, “it just works,” etc. I’m not sure a commoditised marketplace offers that at all.
. As the users needs evolve beyond “spending card”, with investment products, mortgages, insurances, etc, I expect a large portion will move away from Monzo to banks with greater connectivity to those offerings.
back-end tech still stands out as beyond the competition, and with extra innovative thinking, it could deliver what a lot of people need.
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