There is currently a 10 pot limit which Monzo have stated will not increase. I’ll hazard a total guess that that when the first interest paying “pot” appears that pot will be number 11 and not included in the 10 and therefore not a pot in its current incarnation
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Maybe you’re right.
I’ve given loads of thoughts into this pot arguement. If I had a savings jar at home and forgot to take money out so had to use my credit card, then it’s my bad.
I actually think pots should be left separate and not included now, I’ve got raft of tools to help me plan.
If I had money in my nationwide savings it wouldn’t react against my ca Overdraft.
I think were in a loop on here on this topic ha
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Given the huge amount of interest and discussion in this topic, I’ve reached out to some colleagues to hopefully provide a bit more information and rationale behind the system we’ve chosen here. But let’s all try and enjoy our weekend first! 
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Thank you ! Let’s hope for a sunny Sunday!!
I’m guessing that when money in pots isn’t actually held by Monzo at all (being in savings accounts, ISAs, etc.) this won’t be so much of an issue!
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Any credit card I’ve ever had doesn’t charge you for using it until the usually monthly due date after which you then have the approx 2-3 weeks to pay it. It also does care if you use £10 of your credit limit or £10000. If you pay it all back when due no charge.
Your savings account is defined as such and most likely has its own account number. Even in instance such as Santander’s linked saver(my wife has one so using it as an example) It’s a savings account with an account number albeit from what I can see it can only have money transferred from its linked current account not from outside. Kind of like a pot but not as it has its own t&c’s and is totally separate to the current account.
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Sure, but isn’t your Nationwide savings account a separate account with its own reference?
Goals and Pots sit under the same current account number.
Arn’t you and others in this thread making the assumption that every account has to have an account number?
Has anybody got a link to a legal definition to back up this hypothesis?
Without knowing for sure, I don’t think you can say it’s any different to Nationwide, Lloyds, Halifax, Santander etc, as the implementation of all these banks work identically to Monzo’s - other than a missing account number.
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Does it not need a unique identifier to be able to transfer to this separate entity? Pot are not separate from the main account so they don’t have an external unique identifier just a internal uuid?
And terms and conditions
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I don’t know if it needs one. I just know that with Lloyds, the esavers that I had setup could only be created if I had a Lloyds current account. From my esaver, I could only transfer money back to my current account. Just like pots. Would it change the legal definition of an account if Lloyds displayed an external reference? I don’t know, but I’m not making assumptions either way.
Also, looking at the Monzo app, the Current Account tile and the Pots tiles are separate. To me, they look like separate accounts.
I’m speaking purely of the implementation, the way the feature works itself.
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I can’t speak to the Lloyds example specifically, but I have similar accounts with Nationwide and Santander. And they are not like pots, because my account balance doesn’t include them.
If Monzo were saying that pots are not part of my account, then fine, but AFAIK they have said the opposite.
Anyway, I’ll look forward to reading their rationale next week. 
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I do agree the term “account” is used loosely in the app and it is leading to confusion.
There are two different “accounts” going on in the Monzo app as far as I can see.
There’s your actual Account (that you setup with an email address, have AML/KYC checks etc), and theres your Current Account, which holds a balance, can have an overdraft, and has a card attached to it.
We know Pots are separate from your Current Account, the image I posted clearly shows a balance under current account (or would do if I hadn’t removed it), and pots have a balance too. You can’t use your card with pots etc.
Then theres your actual Account, and the balance displayed there is the sum of all of your subaccounts (I use this term because I know no other, but I apologise for putting suggestive words here). One “sub account” is your Current Account, others are pots. And I guess it depends whether your overdraft is attached to your Current Account, or your “main account”.
If the above is true, then it functions exactly like a savings account I would have with Lloyds etc.
I have absolutely no dispute the terminology is confusing, and updating the terms to reflect the truth either way would go a long way. I just want to avoid making assumption and getting upset about them, without fully understanding the facts. (this last bit isn’t directed at you in any way, I’ve just seen it in this thread).
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Indeed. But the word ‘if’ is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence.
As I said, we’ll have a rationale provided next week, but I think that some people thought pots were placeholders for money set aside for some future contingency.
So, in effect, Monzo are saying that if you have a negative balance on your current account, but a higher positive balance in pots, then they’ll charge you 50p per day so that you don’t have to use the money in your pot.
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I absolutely agree it is. My comments contain assumptions and shouldn’t be taken as more. My defense really is out of people muddying facts and opinion. Without knowing absolutely that a requirement for an account is an account number, I think people should be making it clearer they do not know.
Agreed, I look forward to the clarification from Monzo too.
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This is also true for savings accounts totally separate to my current account. Eg bank of Cyprus saver. Paragon saver etc. All must deal with a nominated account
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I think that account numbers are a red herring.
My view is that the status of pots could be clearer and that their treatment in terms of overdraft could be more explicit (in particular the Account tab where the total balance is given as including money in pots).
That said, despite thinking that there could be more clarity, I can’t say that Monzo’s intended outcome is unclear - to me at least.
And - and I hope I’m not a victim of too much kool aid - I really can’t say that I see it as a way for Monzo to exploit their customers or to profiteer. Monzo is still young - to do that consciously would be short-termist and harmful for the bank. (For balance, though, if this were to be what Monzo was doing, I’d be thoroughly disappointed. But, as I say, I just don’t see it).
My simple suggestion is just to tighten up the terms and conditions and some of the language in the app. Then we can disagree about approach rather than technicalities!
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Am I seeing the CEO typing a response to this thread
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Now thats on the ball detective work haha.
Let’s start with a couple of points.
Pots are an opt-in feature. Overdrafts are also an opt-in feature. If you choose to enable the overdraft, it costs 50p a when you’re more than £20 below zero on your main account. We explain this to everyone up front. We also warn customers before they go into their overdraft. If you don’t like this behaviour, you’re free to leave the overdraft switched off, which costs you nothing.
Other banks charge £10/month just to switch off unarranged overdrafts.
If the worst happens, and for whatever reason you miss the repeated warnings or misunderstand them, you may incur a charge of 50 pence. Let’s please try to keep this in perspective.
Debating the technicalities of whether or not pots are a separate account seems to be missing the point. This is a product design decision about how we believe Monzo should work.
First, it’s because we want to keep the mental accounting as straightforward as possible. You see the balance on your homepage and that’s the money that’s available for you to spend. It’s useful for many people to keep money in pots as separate as possible - it’s intentionally out of sight, and you shouldn’t be able to accidentally spend it without taking proactive action to move it into you main account. You shouldn’t need to do maths to figure out how the account is going to work.
I’ve got money sitting in a pot that I need for a tax bill. I do not want to accidentally spend it - I want to keep it ringfenced so that I know for sure that I will be able to pay my tax. Same goes for Direct Debits - in the near future we’d like to introduce a pot for “committed” spend, so as soon as you’re paid, we can automatically set aside money you will need for your bills.
Finally, in future, you will be able to convert pots of money to interest-bearing savings accounts at other banks. It will become very confusing if some pots count towards your overdraft, but other pots don’t.
So we took the decision to keep it straightforward. If you go more than £20 below zero on your main account balance, it costs 50p a day. You may disagree with this design decision. That’s ok - just don’t enable the overdraft.
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