Road map for Monzo USA launch

Monzo USA 🇺🇸
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Do you guys have a schedule of Road Map for Monzo USA launch? I see that N26 has already started rolling out their limited release.

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Nothing has been announced yet. Keep your eyes peeled on their US social accounts and the blog.

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Santa Monica and San Francisco in early August gets it under way

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Hope NYC follows CA :+1:

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Makes some sense seeing as they have an office in Vegas - not too far away and on the same coastal side.

Santa Monica perplexes me slightly though, maybe the more “fashionable” part of LA, but still a bit of a way out from Downtown LA/ Hollywood area.

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Make even more sense as Monzo Inc has its offices in Los Angeles

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Hey @IslanderNY!

We have a roadmap in the works. Our plan is to focus on collecting feedback and ideas from all of you rather than guessing and building features you don’t want or need - which is part of our Beta launch plan!

We chose Santa Monica partly due to the sunshine and the waves, but also because we have a community on that side of town. But don’t be too worried – I’ll be very surprised if this is our last event in LA, so keep an eye out for updates.

Let me know if I can help with anything else!

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Do you imagine that features that are already available in the UK to be easier to implement on the US side, or are you building everything from the ground up?

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For the things that you actually see and interact with in the app the US product uses a lot of the technology we’ve built for the UK product. For example the actual app, customer support, your user profile and account information are all monzo.

How this functions in the backend is pretty different - for example we’re using a third party mastercard processor for the US instead of our own in-house processor for the UK (in a similar way to our prepaid card back in the day). This means we’re not directly connected to mastercard and so instead send instructions (authorise a payment, freeze a card) or receive data via that third party’s API. Another difference is because we’re using an issuing bank partner they provide the Account Number and Routing Number, rather than monzo generating these ourselves.

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So this suggests that a MasterCard connection by a bank in the UK cannot be used by that bank for issuing MasterCard elsewhere

Interesting…

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Yeah you’re right and there are a number of reasons, mainly down to speed we opted to go with a third party:

  • We have a Mastercard processor but not Interlink or Maestro which are needed in the US - this was quite a new area for us so would have required a chunk of time invested in learning how these work
  • Mastercard require you to be re-certified in the US if you want to be a processor for a US issuer (~6 months work)
  • The option of building our own processor isn’t off the table and what we’re currently learning now would be useful input into that if we decided to later
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Thanks for the insight

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My Guess

It’s near “Silicon Beach” Snap Inc. etc are based out there.

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I did not realise Mastero were one of the interbank networks used in the US. I’ve seen numerous others. So does thus mean you are going with Interlink?

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Are they better than GPS? :crossed_fingers:

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A bit of googling later, it looks like Interlink is owned by Visa. Strange that it hasn’t been integrated into the standard Visa (debit) platform.

I don’t know anything about this, but I’m assuming in the UK you built a MasterCard processor because you issue Mastercards. By implication, will your US cards be on three schemes (MasterCard, Maestro and Interlink)?

(Also ccing @Rika for card and processor geekery :blush:)

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Maestro is actually multiple networks in a trench coat depending on where you are in the world. Maestro US, EU, and UK (which I don’t think actually exists anymore) are all different things due to who Mastercard acquired, when they acquired them, and also local laws.

In the US, you must have an “unaffiliated debit network” on your card beside the standard Mastercard and Visa. This typically means putting Maestro applets on Visa cards and Interlink cards on Mastercard cards. The difference is there due to some US laws which I believe seem to be designed to increase competition by protecting the smaller debit networks and lowering fees to merchants who connect to debit networks in addition to credit networks?

Maestro EU’s Single Message System (where there are just immediate debit messages) is fairly well bridged over to Mastercard’s Dual Message System (where there are authorizations and presentments). Not sure about Maestro US.

It’s worth noting that Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit as you think of them are classed as debit products operating on a credit network (which seems to just be short hand for single verses dual message operation).

(This is all just my interpretations of what I’ve read outside of my normal work on our UK debit cards. :slightly_smiling_face:)

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This is fascinating :slight_smile:

Personally I have never seen a directly competing interbank network logo on the back of a card such as Mastro on a Visa card. That is not to say something is not loaded on the chip or mag stripe.

I usually seee multiple related or independent networks.

For example: Pulse, Star, and MoneyPass on a “Visa”

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Hello!
Was wondering if there are any actual dates involved with the Monzo USA launch? As in those of us who have signed up to the wait list, when will see a card?
Thank you!

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Hey Elizabeth, thanks for joining the community!

We don’t currently have a date in the diary for the next launch event but would expect this the happen before then end of September.

Where are you based?