Summary has only this week been a revelation to me.
It never worked properly and I couldn’t work out why. Always seemed to double–account and I couldn’t understand why some Budgets reduced and others didn’t in different areas. That made me go way over budget most months.
Then this week the penny dropped: I had a borked repeating weekly transaction registered in Committed Spending which never triggered, so Monzo was accounting for that in advance but then also accounted for it when the real transaction was made. Quick question as to how to fix it on here, and within half an hour my Spending and Budgeting sections were all balanced and the tab now works properly.
I’m very happy, and will move a lot more of my financial life, direct debits and salary over Monzo now.
Yes. I think @Daesimpso’s comparison was very fair, but for me Monzo’s ethics are head and shoulders above anything else. Nationwide comes close, but they have creaking tech infrastructure.
An IBAN is basically an international sort code / account number combo. It starts with a two letter country code (so GB for the UK*, FR for France etc).
In Europe (or the Single European Payments Area, or SEPA) it shouldn’t matter what the IBAN prefix is, just like it shouldn’t matter if your sort code starts 04 or 40). But in reality it does - it’s both emotional for folk and sometimes there’s either (illegal) national protectionism, or just old hard coded systems that expect IBANs to start with the domestic country code.
On a similar note, I love that Monzo don’t use the hamburger menu. As phones have got bigger, and most people hold the phone in their right hand, the menu starting in the top left corner has meant the options have got further and further away from your thumb.
The biggest problem I have is they’re misleading about what they are and aim to be. The ethics policy which was published after much customer demand is a perfect example. There is no way they can honestly believe they’re acting in accordance with it.
Absolutely. It’s not ideal for one handed use, and furthermore, the data showed that people weren’t using it. There’s definitely some UX stuff on Android that we want to improve on, but removing the hamburger menu was definitely the right choice for us!
I believe Anne is put on the pedestal she is because she is a senior woman in banking, which is an apparent rarity. I don’t know enough to say whether that reputation is earned, but I think it’s a shame that this is the direction she is taking Starling.
Personally, I find it disappointing that the gender of the CEO is seen as mattering at all. There are no doubt fantastic women in banking, and highly likely a ‘boys club’ that needs disrupting, but simply being a woman without actually showing tackling the problems shouldn’t earn unbridled press.
Long post incoming but I said as much earlier this year regarding her #Makemoneyequal campaign. She had a wonderful opportunity to take this initiative she started and actually educate women on finances, maybe about useful skills other than “how to save” tips in cosmo articles. How to invest, plan for the future, budget + grow the money saved, things like that.
Articles mentioned this hashtag and Starling’s pledge but very little was actually done? Just like the “No hidden figures” ad which was a pretty video but I don’t know what the wider goal was. Articles basically marketed Starling without really talking about the specifics, eg Starling could have said the ability to budget/ create goals is helpful to women + bring in partnerships in the marketplace to encourage women to invest. The whole thing looked like it was a study commissioned just to promote Starling, I haven’t heard any updates from this pledge for helping women since.
A couple of workshops or open offices with talks would also be great. People on Starling’s community love when Anne comes on to interact with users so no doubt it would have been a good opportunity to get users to realise the sort of gender discrimination when it comes to talking about finances. A few times staff on the forum have popped in to remind users not to generalise/ joke about their significant others frittering all their money away, which I’m sure was not intended to be malicious but is an example of the sort of stereotypes Anne aims to challenge in this campaign.
People obviously have different POVs about this- eg “I don’t see gender/ gender doesn’t matter, she shouldn’t be treated differently”, but since she has decided to market this angle, Starling really could have done so much with this campaign and cemented their image with respect to their ethics statement.
One thing I have to applaud Starling for though is their good balance of women in higher positions, in many male-dominated fields women tend to get stuck in basic tier jobs with little avenue for promotion, and even fewer women on the board.
Thanks for this @evangelskies. I’ve seen so much publicly and from ‘insiders’, that what you have said really rings true. I’d love for a wonderful woman to take banking to a new future but experience suggests Anne isn’t that person.
The future of banking is not sexist, and media treating it as such is a disservice to customers.
Oh I saw that news earlier this year, she’ll be a great addition to Monzo! Not sure if she’s started yet since it says she’ll start in September.
I love Monzo’s diversity blog posts or when they discuss issues like these it’s nice seeing that they just get it and really practice what they preach in their hiring/ working culture.
it’s nice seeing that they just get it and really practice what they preach in their hiring/ working culture.