The good news is users who don’t want an overdraft won’t have to take one. I don’t know whether there will be an interest free buffer but whether there is or isn’t, it sounds like users won’t be able to go beyond that into an unplanned overdraft which incurs fees & payments will simply be rejected instead. I think this practice alone is a massive improvement vs the majority of the legacy bank’s current accounts.
I don’t think we know either way, at this point.
Judging by the fact that Monzo’s no longer running the student ambassador program, my guess is that they found the Monzo offering - in it’s current form - a harder sell than was anticipated already. So perhaps overdrafts are key here but I’m sure there’s other factors too.
That makes sense to me too. But it just depends on Monzo’s revenue model so I don’t know what they’ll decide.
Just to clarify, once a student starts paying interest on their overdraft &/or buying cross-sold products, they’re on their way to paying back the cost of the interest free period & may finish covering that cost before they’ve paid back their overdraft.