It’s hardly an unfair comparison, I just said people are complaining Starling has no forum as if it’s the decider of all banks. N26 doesn’t have one and are doing fine - that was my point.Fintech banks don’t necessarily need one if the product itself is great.
N26 will surprise a lot of people in the UK, I could put a safe bet on that.
Besides, when it comes down to money, surely the deciding factor should be who’s handling your money responsibly and your ROI. Again, I honestly don’t care who is better lol, I have got over 10 of my family/friends to go full Monzo, and 5 to Starling so I can’t slate one or the other.
Also, most of those countries are fairly small and wouldn’t see the benefit of N26, especially in a country like Greece where they hardly have money as is.
I think it’s pretty much the dictionary definition of unfair comparison to talk about user numbers of one product available in 16 countries contrasted with another product available in one.
Your point may have been that they are doing fine, but your justification of that was based on a user number comparison (quoted above) which is a flawed methodology.
Using your same data points, you could also argue that perhaps a community forum would have given N26 a 1.5% market penetration rather than 0.44%. That’s a conclusion that can be hypothesised from the exact same methodology you used. It would also be a flawed argument, though, and completely hypothetical.
Is there an industry wide definition of how banks are actually doing? How do Monzo class if they are “doing fine”?
Opening accounts, whilst a great achievement, is only a partial view of the overall picture.
Who would be the happier bank? One with 500,000 customers holding average deposits of £1,000.
Or one with a million customers holding average deposits of £100?
It can be very hard for the average person (I am squarely in this category), to know whose doing well, whose not, and whose marketing is trying to paint a different picture.
I did read a Forbes article not to long ago, which effectively said “Unless you have all the numbers, it’s impossible to compare how the new banks are doing” - Which is very true.
Edit - Found the Forbes article for anyone interested.
There’s definitely no standard definition, and that was the point I was making - user numbers are both a flawed way of making a comparison when companies are operating in different territories, and they aren’t in itself a measure of company health either.
We aren’t, and never have been aiming to have a big balance sheet. That’s why it doesn’t make sense when people (either customers or media) say things like “The average balance held at Bank A is XXX more than the average balance held at Bank B”. That’s also a illogical comparison.
We’ve talked recently about our upcoming Savings Pots which will generate interest. It will be a seamless experience within Monzo, however we are partnering with another company to offer this, and technically speaking, the money will be on their balance sheet and not ours. So logically you can see that we’re not interested in having a larger average balance per customer.
Our mission statement is : Monzo makes money work for everyone.
One bank trying to make every product is not going to be fair or always competitive with companies that just deal with that specific product. That’s obvious and that’s one of things that people hate about legacy banks. I don’t want to walk into a Santander branch and get spammed with adverts, flyers and sales talk telling me about how fantastic their loans are, oh, and do you want a mortgage with us, and hey, you should get our insurance package! Their goal is total lock in.
Our goal is to work to find the products that are right for you no matter who offers them - it’s a hub-and-spoke model.
I don’t know but my view would be self sustaining. You can build the best, most ethical bank in the world that everyone wants to be a customer of - but if it reliant on external funding and not self sustaining I hardly call that successful.
So my definition is once the VC dries up and the crowdfunding stops if the bank survives to takeover that is success. Monzo however has set higher goals and has ruled out takeover so it has to stand on its own merits.
We’ve talked recently about our upcoming Savings Pots which will generate interest. It will be a seamless experience within Monzo, however we are partnering with another company to offer this, and technically speaking, the money will be on their balance sheet and not ours. So logically you can see that we’re not interested in having a larger average balance per customer.
Your conclusion was: logically this meant that anybody could see that Monzo isn’t interested in building a large balance sheet.
I say that it isn’t obvious to me and an alternative could be that you are not willing/able to manage the risk. Similar result but different reasons.
I’ll take your point that the truth is Monzo doesn’t wish to be the supplier but a market place, but then why all the expense of being a bank? Is it just to enable banking for the unbanked or won’t the market place work without the customer’s financial data.
My take - There’s not a huge risk in having a large balance sheet once you already have a banking license and a robust infrastructure. If that wasn’t the case - you wouldn’t have the banking license to begin with. It isn’t an easy process to get one, which is why a lot of people don’t do it and go for the e-money license instead.
Furthermore - whilst the money isn’t on our balance sheet in this scenario, we still own the relationship with the customer, so it’s not as if the risk is transferred elsewhere. There’s still risks to manage.
The banking license is about customer trust and protection to a large degree. Would it work without financial data? I’m sure there would be ways, but not ways that could necessarily come with the same protections , customer trust, and brand loyalty that it brings.
I think N26 launching in UK is good competiin for all mobile banking apps. I prefer a mobile bank personally with a forum. However I will open a N26 account when I can so I can do a true comparison. Going into figures above on how many customer it’s showing in the UK Monzo has most then starling trailing behind. Yes I got N26 have more customers but how can we compare that to say to starling and Monzo who are UK market only. As N26 have a lot more countries under their belt.
You’re on the Monzo forums on a starling feedback thread asking why everyone is debating the two banks?? That’s like going onto an android forum and an apple feedback thread asking why people are comparing and debating between them. That’s the whole point of this thread. It’s not a case of people have the hump or anything, it’s just interesting to compare and debate the merits of each. You wouldn’t go to a debate society and tell them to just get along
Lol, everyone in here preaching “I love how this forum lets members from any fintech company come and debate”… then when they discuss the parts of the fintech bank they use, people slate it and argue that they don’t like that feature…
The thread is to discuss (and give opinions on) Starling bank, the whole ‘comparison with Monzo and debate’ thing is the unhealthy side effect of this being a Monzo forum as far as I’m concerned. We could really do without it.
I get that but I think it’s a bit naive to think that’s ever going to happen on a forum for a competitor. Every time a new feature is released and discussed surely its part and parcel to discuss that feature in relation to the products competitors, of which the main one is the company whose forum this is. It’s a bit pointless discussing a feature if you’re not comparing it to anything else that exists especially if there is other very similar features out there. A reference point goes a long way. I don’t mean that this threads point is to debate monzo vs starling, I mean the threads point is to debate starling features (it’s not just a place to post what the features are and not discuss them) and I think with that comes comparison to their competitors.
