Signup amount

if I “only” had £50 would I feel aggreived ?

I think its far less controversial to have one amount for all - there have been a few “complaints” that £100 is too much in the forum history , there have been “complaints” that students getting a £25 sign up period was unfair - I think its a good idea to reduce the sign up fee , but have it set at one amount , because that takes away another reason not to sign up to try out Monzo, which is good for everybody - more customers gives Monzo more clout with negotiating deals for the benefit of Monzo and its customers

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I think it’s reasonable to reduce the sign-up fee now that you’ve got some good traction. Setting the bar higher earlier on stops a lot of time wasters etc
I think the need for top-up is a lot clearer, for those who read what they’re signing up for.

You could have an option for those who are willing to top up £100, or more, from the off where they don’t need to queue. It’s a trade off; they’re willing to put their money down immediately, why not let them skip the queue? Those who don’t want to can pay £25/50 when they get to the top.

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I think a single top-up amount for all new users would be seen as most fair from existing and new customers. But I understand the need to try to discourage vexatious applications and applications from those who will never use the card. So how about altering the reward?

Monzo must have some idea of the cost of acquiring a new customer, the cost of servicing a new card/account, and the rate of drop out at various stages. The initial top up is never a “fee” nor “charge” since the user can potentially spend all the money added at any time. Some ideas to change the reward aspect and Monzo desired outcomes might include:

  • Low initial top up (say £10 or £25). the same for everyone
  • Provide an initial encouragement to users to get into the Monzo habit (e.g. if the initial top up is more than £100 add £5 free after say 6 months) but make sure this can’t be used as an attack against Monzo to gain money (fake account creation automated attack)
  • Allow existing customers get the reward once too (since they weren’t offered it the first time!)
  • Consider a fixed non-returnable fee of £5 for a new card, and no minimum top-up, but maybe the fee is credited back to the account in the medium term after spend reaches £1,000 in the first two years [note some/many new customers think the initial top up IS a fee, so why not make it a fee?]
  • Close dormant accounts, with the start-up fee or less, automatically after 3 months of no use, and all funds kept by Monzo (update the T&Cs)

The cost/reward needs to be calculated using real Monzo data, so monetary and period values in the above are just examples.

Each card costs them approximately £40 to produce and send out. On top of that there’s maintaining all of servers, paying third-party services, paying for transport and entry to exhibitions and the like, plus paying their own staff.

They do invest what they can from the balance that we keep with them, plus have acquired several million in the form of outside investment. Despite all that they’re still currently making a loss of about £40 per year per customer, which will be less when the full bank launches and begin turning profits when offering overdrafts and partnering with other services.

I doubt Monzo will be able to afford to reduce the sign up amount, not without more investment anyway.

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£40?! Holy shit. I was expecting £10 at most. Madness.

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lol I think I started this unfounded rumour, I would guess the card , sending out the card and staff managing the card for a year costs in the region of £40 the actual card doesnt cost £40 :slight_smile:

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My personal opinion is that it needs to be £10. My reasons for this is that it should be low to encourage more people to try it for themselves where they feel £100 is too much of a risk. Also I want a Monzo card for my daughter so that I can send her pocket money to her card and she certainly is not getting £100 pocket money! I also have another daughter that’s a student at university. I think the features that Monzo offers to help her monitor her spending will be good. She has a student loan so can transfer her monthly spending allowance to Monzo and know what she has left. I also like the up and coming features such as split bills which will useful amongst students, but still feel £100 is too high to encourage them to use it.

Unless the daughter you’re giving pocket money to is at least 18, this won’t be possible for some time unfortunately, for reasons explained here

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Been thinking this for a while but haven’t had the evidence to challenge it. £40/card is just insane. £40/user for all costs over the entire beta period I could maybe believe!

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:see_no_evil:

Well, at least your fake news didn’t get Donald J. Trump elected :wink:

The £40 figure was mentioned in a recent article referenced by @alexs and is the cost per user per year to Monzo.

Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield tells me his startup bank loses on average £40 per year per user at the moment.

&

Blomfield adds that £40 loss per user per year compares favourably to banks, which will regularly pay over £100 in marketing and offers to acquire a single customer.

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I was looking for that article to reference plus double check if I remembered correctly, obviously not :laughing:. Cheers for linking it though.

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I feel that if the idea is to recruit serious users then 10 or 25 GBP doesn’t encourage that. I think 50 to 100 GBP is fair…but should be consistent for everyone …you invest in us as users and we invest in you and your overheads…you are not a charity… If you do go for a tiered first top up why not offer a colour choice or design for higher or 100 gbp initial top ups…? The Coral is just a bit much for me…personal choice…and if I had a choice I would go for something a little more classy/subdued in appearance…

Its interesting to me how emotive the initial topup amount is - a £100 (or even £1000!) topup user is not inherently generating any money for Monzo. The amount of money is a test of trust plus ideally having enough money to experience the value of Monzo. But it seems some people still feel they are ‘paying’ monzo? It is still your own money and if you then went and withdrew it from an ATM, Monzo would actually lose money.

Ultimately its in Monzo’s interest (and the communities) to have the barrier as low as possible that:

  1. gives enough cash to demonstrate monzo’s awesomeness
  2. is a valid test of trust

I dont feel that anyone should be aggrieved that people are offered less - Monzo being more popular is good for everyone. The topup is a test barrier. I can see this being nothing one day - and thats a good thing!

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I agree with James, the quicker Monzo can sign up customers to experience the app the better for Monzo, its customers and its investors.
There are more and more bank startups coming onto the scene that will take from the potential customer pool that Monzo is aiming for, and once gone I think would be more difficult to pull back to the Monzo way of life :slight_smile:

Presumably when Monzo offer a current account it will be a free or virtually free sign up ??? like most banks, having initial thought £50 was a fair first top up to get them using the card , maybe it should be £25 - I still think it should be the same amount for everybody - but surely Monzos aim is customer acquisition, while having some incentive to use the card on receiving it - spending the Initial top up to demonstrate how well it works .

Was Monzo pleased with the Student top up uptake when that was £25 ? was it easier, quicker than the £100 top up take up rates ?

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I’m a bit wary about the fact you are asking me to put £100 onto a card I haven’t received. Will I still get the card if I don’t top up? There’s no way I’m just giving you £100.

Hi @KiriShrew, only way to complete Monzo registration is to top up with £100. Monzo is fully licensed bank, BACS participant and whole finance related shenanigans with 350,000 or something users. While I totally understand that company is new and you probably haven’t heard much about it, it has all regulations above itself (which can’t be said about some competitors).

If you are a student, there was some separate scheme, allowing students could top up less than £100. You can probably get more details if you email help@monzo.com and ask about it.

Money you top up remain fully yours and you can take whole sum out from ATM on the same day as card arrives - but how would you then experience Monzo wonders, doing so? :sweat_smile: Card usually arrives within 2-3 days top from the time you topped up.

Here are some tweets from other Monzo users: https://twitter.com/monzolovetweets?lang=en

If you have any questions about top up or related, fire away. Monzo is so awesome, that regular Monzo users like me, will do a lot to convince hesitant users, including writing a reply when I should be in bed already! :smiley: :wink:

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Thank you for the reply but what if the card gets lost in the post or something happens to the company before I receive the card? Do I lose the money? I’m sure you can see why I converted about just handing over £100!

just like any other bank if it gets lost in the post - if you haven’t received it within maybe 3 days of topping up your card get in touch with Monzo and they will send you another one - No you wouldn’t lose your money it will be registered to your email address & your account number allocated to you and your email - hope this helps your confidence level in Monzo - Ive been with Monzo since dec 2015 and never had issues with withdrawing money , using my funds on my card

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You’re safe. If the card does get lost you get sent another one. The card isn’t activated until you do it with the app anyway.

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To be clear, this isn’t an e-cash card where the money is stored on the actual card (as with Oyster cards). The money is stored within your account on Monzo’s systems, the card just links to your account. Very similar to a debit card and a normal bank account. So, as others have said, if your card gets lost in the post, it’s just a piece of plastic and a new one can be sent. The card is linked to your account on activation.

Monzo is in the middle of ramping up for the current account, for which they have a full banking licence. This licence requires them to hold a certain amount of capital, so they can’t just disappear in a couple of days. All information so far released indicates that Monzo is in a secure financial position at the moment. You can also read their annual report from a few months ago, if you’d like to gain further confidence that this is a ‘proper’ bank that is going to be around for more than a few weeks.

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