While the new current account will need to be able to send SEPA payments (hopefully directly but possibly thru an intermediary like TransferWise) how about considering other additional payment methods? Such as linking to SOFORT?
With SOFORT you can transfer money to accounts in various countries such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Czech and Slovak republics from a bank app. It can also be used for paying for online shopping on some european websites.
While opening an investment account recently, I was given the option to transfer money to my account using Sofort. As soon as I saw that it asked for my bank login full credentials, I immediately stop. While I have given up my credentials before (e.g. MoneyWiz app), I did not know enough about Sofort to be happy given those up. I just wish there was a way to do a immediate transfer, with an automated, both sided checks, between two parties without having to give up your bank credentials.
I’ve heard that this is common in other europeans countries and wondered if is only myself.
I am not happy to give my details to apps like MoneyWiz as I have never heard of them so don’t trust them, however with SOFORT you log in to your bank account and authorise it that way so you are using your bank’s system you trust and not divulging your sign in details to some unknown app. With SOFORT used by many banks in the Benelux and DACH regions that gives me the confidence to use it. It is just a matter of your bank signing up to that system
It fast and banks accept it not only as a payment but as proof of identity of the sender. TransferWise and similar payment systems purely transfer money and banks do not accept them for verification of ID.
But if you want to top up your account abroad it much easier and quicker with SOFORT as instant (similar to Monzo’s current card top up) rather than 3 days with SEPA. It would also be only using Monzo’s connection to SOFORT, and not having to use a third party MarketPlace company like TransferWise.
but when Monzo talk about TransferWise it is for providing SEPA/SWIFT transfers? and they are not instant.
I am not saying we have SOFORT instead of SEPA (we need SEPA and SWIFT) but as well as. So we can have quicker transfers to certain banks/countries/accounts.
My assumption was that the integration would simply enable international money transfers between TransferWise accounts. And that, that would replicate the SEPA/SWIFT transfer functionality but not use those services.
Yes, but the way the two integrate is different if I understand rightly, with banks authorizing a SOFORT transaction with the bank’s own login and sending a token to SOFORT versus TransferWise holding a user’s sign in details. Unless of course Monzo integrate it in some way in which they can access TransferWise systems while retaining customer identity and verification totally in house in Monzo.
If that is so, that will be rubbish. Customers want/need real SEPA and SWIFT payments to send money to accounts abroad and not to force friends or companies to have to open a TransferWise account to receive a payment!
Just to be clear, I’m not a TransferWise user at the moment so I didn’t know whether money has to be sent to a TransferWise account & then transferred out or if it could be sent straight to a user’s bank account - which I’d want too.
Judging by this video, the recipient doesn’t need a TransferWise account though
