✨ Spring cleaning: making it easier to manage your account & see Pots payments

[Alexxxxx (>50 categories pls)]

@N26throwaway

But given the vast majority of subscription services tend to give you two wheels to choose a number and either weeks or month when setting up a subscription, it would be nice for Monzo to mimic that method when configuring frequency in app.

This exactly. I know there’s extra logic to be built etc but this really should be the default when setting the occurrence of anything.

[Revels]

I think I’d like it to work like “I just paid a subscription to the RSPCA, I want that to always come out of my RSPCA pot” so whether that is my monthly direct debit or a extra fee, for buying something else, that’s sorted.

I guess the difficulty comes when I want the subscription to come from the pot, but not normal payments. Especially if there’s a bigger value and it could cause the transaction to be declined.

As the 79p for iCloud each month is a bit different to buying a new iPhone.

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

@Revels

As the 79p for iCloud each month is a bit different to buying a new iPhone.

I think the compromise here would be the same as bill pots. If your 79p isn’t enough for your new iPhone, it comes from your main balance.

Apple is a finicky example in general though, and they’re probably a tough one for any solution Monzo offer to navigate, given you can only really have one payment method used with them. So subscriptions, movie rentals, app purchases, airtag orders, all use the same billing method by default.

PayPal are another trouble maker. Some of my subscriptions are just done through them for convenience. Then I also use them often for general internet shopping, and then I have to pay my PayPal credit bill too, and they’re used for p2p payments occasionally.

[Revels]

@N26throwaway

I think the compromise here would be the same as bill pots. If your 79p isn’t enough for your new iPhone, it comes from your main balance.

The fear I have here, is that the survey Monzo gave me said that in this scenario, the iPhone transaction would be declined, regardless of overall balance. Which I feel is a huge step back.

edit

Just checked the survey. This was actually in regard to bill pots, rather than payment pots. But I think the point still stands and I would imagine they’d both work the same in the end.

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

I guess it’s a choice between protect your money, or cover you when you’re short.

I think personally I’d favour the protection if it’s dead simple to just put my iPhone money where it needs to be before I buy it.

A push notification upon the decline explaining me why and having a rich notification option to move the money with a tap to the pot so I can retry would be a lovely solution too.

[Dan5 (Dan)]

We give you an inch and y’all want a mile

[Ordog]

If you don’t ask you don’t get

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

I just want my £186 pet food subscription to stop catching me off guard every 7 weeks.

[Rat_au_van (Em)]

Not just any mile.

A metal dark mile

[Dan5 (Dan)]

Blinking heck! And I thought the £30 a month I spent on whiskers was bad

[hdwrng]

Do you have forty eight dogs?

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

Hah! Just the one! Quite a few other pets though, ranging from peacocks and chickens, to cats. Only the dog is mine! I just got roped into sourcing all the food!

I’m practically running a farm at this point. Only thing missing is an Alpaca, but the local Alpaca farm my brother volunteers at on weekends are having babies soon, so it’s only a matter of time!

[davidwalton (Award Winning Hot Coral Analyst)]

@N26throwaway

I’m practically running a farm at this point

I feel the pain.

Working Cocker Spaniel , Leopard Gecko and Dwarf Hamster here.

Looks like nothing on paper but the support and costs to keep these family companions safe, happy and fed is insane.

Thread proper derailed

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

@davidwalton

Thread proper derailed

I have a real knack this!

[Peter_G]

I wonder if this, combined with virtual cards linked to specific pots, might give super power mode to folks who need it?

Curve (imaginecurve)

[Peter_G]

@davidwalton

I’m getting hints of being able to pay card-based subscriptions (CPA’s) from pots.

Tell us more!

@N26throwaway

Some of my CPAs can’t be earmarked in Monzo because they’re not a typical 4 week/month recurrent. They’d need to go a bit further for me here to fill any gaps that this would miss, either;

This feels a bit like a conflation of two things: the prediction of regular payments in Summary and paying recurring credit card transactions from a pot.

I’m not sure that knowing the frequency of payment would be a prerequisite for the latter - indeed it’d seem to overcomplicate it somewhat

@N26throwaway

I just want my £186 pet food subscription to stop catching me off guard every 7 weeks.

Personally, I wouldn’t rely on Summary for this. I’d schedule 26.58 (186/7) to be transferred to a pet food pot weekly - then pray for the ability to connect a virtual card to a pot, and use that card to pay for the food.

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

@Peter_G

This feels a bit like a conflation of two things

It probably is! The way i see it is, Monzo can’t currently (AFAIK) identify these payments as recurring card payments. So if it becomes possible to pay CPAs from pots as David thinks, if Monzo can’t see this is a recurring payment in summary, then I presume they won’t be able to for paying it from a pot either, as the billing period is outside the scope of the options we currently have.

That’s my concern, hopefully it’s misguided and wrong. But if Summary can’t auto detect CPAs unless I earmark the transaction as such and set the frequency, its reasonable to suspect paying these from pots will be set up in a similar fashion.

@Peter_G

Personally, I wouldn’t rely on Summary for this. I’d schedule 26.58 (186/7) to be transferred to a pet food pot weekly - then pray for the ability to connect a virtual card to a pot

That’s what I’m hoping to be able to do. Currently I set this stuff aside in a pot anyway! I just have to remember to transfer it back to my main account in time!

I think a more universal solution of paying CPAs from pots, if it becomes a thing, is if pots are able to detect them without you setting them up as a subscription or choosing a frequency. If they can’t then more granular control for this is needed, I think. I also have my Huel subscription (paid via PayPal) and my YFood subscription (paid via Apple Pay) every 10 weeks and 6 weeks respectively too.

I’m theorising from speculation alluded earlier in the thread, and my concerns could wind up being irrelevant or unfounded depending on what they end up giving us, if anything at all in relation to this stuff. May be best holding off on this until we have something we can play with and provide constructive feedback on what we actually do get, rather than what we could get.

[davidwalton (Award Winning Hot Coral Analyst)]

@Peter_G

Tell us more!

Just a feeling… it’s in the eyes

[Peter_G]

@N26throwaway

May be best holding off on this until we have something we can play with and provided constructive feedback on what we actually do get, rather than what we could get.

I agree!

But that said, two thoughts!

I’m interested in why @davidwalton thought that CPAs from Pots are coming as it opens up some interesting avenues to explore:

• if Monzo is able to determine if a transaction is part of a CPA then that should result in the ability to see and cancel these in the app without having to flag them as recurring

• Conversely (or I suppose even if Monzo can identify a CPA) then it means that they’re able to make card payments from Pots. I wonder if it might just be easier to assign a merchant to a Pot (after all, Curve seems to be able to choose and select a card based on the merchant in real time, so it should be possible for Monzo to do it with Pots).

[Rat_au_van (Em)]

That’s definite confirmation in my book

which is written in crayon. Occasionally with letters written back to front. But it’s still my book