It becomes an issue the same, we live in a global economy. Thereās some noise, yes, but not enough to make most banks implement it in the US (though some have).
Meanwhile, Iād say if you asked the average person on the street - anywhere in the world - theyād say they donāt want it! It can be done well, but it often isnāt, and thatās the issue.
I donāt like 3D secure but some sites need it (tried to book flights last time and it wouldnāt register at all, but also unsure it was because they didnāt realise it was MasterCard Debit). A lot of e-commerce sites in Singapore use it too and I hate it. I think you need it for bitcoin too.
We donāt live in the US though. Not everything has a direct comparison to their market. You have to remember, that Monzo, in itās current state, is a product aimed at people living in the United Kingdom.
I too travel to the US multiple times a year for business, and the two countries are polar opposites on certain things, banking and finance being one of them.
Bitcoin isnāt really related to it at all, one major Bitcoin exchange service requires it, yes - but there are others.
As for sites not working - remember, just because a site has 3-D Secure implemented (most do, but there are major exceptions like Amazon) doesnāt mean it wonāt work with cards that donāt have it. Iāve only personally encountered the latter once (trying to buy Belgian train tickets online years ago). Iāve heard of the Coinbase one, as well.
Do these sites in Singapore refuse cards that donāt have 3-D Secure?
I disagree, British banking is more like America than most markets - something I imagine Monzo, too, has seen. Even the core product - Mastercard Debit - is common, whereas many other countries prefer Maestro.
Also, e-commerce doesnāt really follow national borders at all, so the basic experience is virtually identical.
I think theyāre ramping up feature rollouts early this year after everyone is moved over to CA, so I canāt wait for more feature posts and previews! Such posts tend to be more positive anyway and I like seeing more staff interaction on here.
I agree, legacy banks have decades or hundreds(?) of years of experience ahead of Monzo and have the infrastructure, staff, resources, etc. and there is less to do to close the gap if they actually stopped being complacent about their app/ service. Plus with those I think you get a lot of customers who just stay with a bank because itās too much trouble to switch- but with Monzo itās a lot easier to simply just stop using/ leave.
Or even other fintech banks like N26 and Starling, they have a few years ahead on Monzo with developing their product so there is some catch up to do. Iām keeping an eye out for the blog post that was promised re: sneak peeks. Iām optimistic. I didnāt like the restlessness towards the end of 2017 either, I think 2018 is definitely going to be spent delivering a more solid product and ticking off requests people have.
I have had my Monzo card refused twice because of 3D secure on Singapore shopping apps/sites I think. I thought it was an error with my address but after asking in app chat it was because of 3D secure. With other Singapore cards, sometimes you canāt make payment until you input a OTP sent to your phone, and you canāt do bank transfers if you donāt use a OTP/ bank token. Itās so inconvenient.
On the Monzo site they mentioned possibly expanding to Asia via Singapore, and I think the banking industry here could do with more shaking up. They only recently started having a new service that works a little like monzo.me (pay someone if you know their identity number/ phone number/ QR code), which is so much easier compared to needing to bring your bank token around everywhere/ wait till youāre home to do it. Iāve seen a few articles predicting that Singapore banks risk having their revenue taken by foreign banks if they donāt improve their services.
Well, we will have to agree to dis-agree. For a start, we donāt pay to get money from a cash machine (all be it with a few private ATMs that charge), fee free banking is the norm here, where as people in the US expect to.
The debit card isnāt Monzoās core product. Their core product is a Current Account, that like most UK banks, has a debit card associated with it, that allows you to utilise your account.
Reading through previous threads on this forum, the MasterCard debit card is just a result of MasterCard being more receptive, and easier (and cheaper) to work with thank VISA. I donāt think it has anything to do with the US market.
Definitely, one of my concerns, personally, is Monzoās move to the US. I see this as having pros and cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Thatās unfortunate, and it really bothers me when sites do this. Iāve rarely had an issue, but it sounds like sites in Singapore are pickier.
As for the one-time code, Danske Bank in Northern Ireland has started this nonsense. Every single 3-D Secure transaction needs approved by SMS. Itās absurd, what if youāre on holiday or just donāt have good signal at home? SMS isnāt even that secure.
Definitely, though it would have the same basic pros/cons I note above for US expansion. In this case, unlike forcing the development of cheque imaging, it sounds like it would force the development of 3-D Secure 
Definitely, but Iām also not saying theyāre identical. Just more similar than most countries, and I imagine Monzo sees this too and itās part of why the US will be their next market.
The US has fee-free alliances and smaller networks, much like LINK, so Iād say thatās actually a similarity. The difference is that in the US out-of-network cards get charged a fee (though this is mostly because there really is only one fee-free network here and since almost all banks participate, thereās not much reason to add what would basically be a tourist tax - if any major banks leave, Iād expect to see non-LINK charges).
Core product was terrible wording on my part, wasnāt it? I meant āprimary method of accessing fundsā.
I wasnāt referring to Mastercard vs Visa, though the popularity of Visa Debit is another thing the US and UK have in common. In both countries, almost all debit cards are Visa Debit (never V PAY). I was referring to them using Mastercard Debit vs Maestro (and Visa Debit vs V PAY).
In both the US and the UK, Mastercard Debit is a distant second place to Visa Debit, though.
@evangelskies - what network is most common in Singapore?
Visa probably, Iāve had four Visa cards and one Mastercard one (credit). Donāt think Iāve seen a Mastercard Debit yet.
Virgin Money use MasterCard Debit 
I donāt think they have a branch in Singapore, Iāve never seen it.
Thanks, I wonder if the 3-D Secure problem would be an issue with a Visa card that didnāt support 3-D Secure. Is there any online music store or similar that is in Singapore and requires 3-D Secure I could use to test, I have a Visa card Iām 99% sure doesnāt support 3-DS?
Do DBS and Citibank not do them? Thought they would probably consider MasterCard over Visa?
Not sure I follow the the logic that thereās no real requirement for 3D secure code because itās not really of interest to consumers in the US.
Letās see, are those then same US consumers that use magstripe and magstripe contactless while pretty much the rest of the world has ditched the technology for EMV? If we were to apply the same logic we would conclude that MagStripe must be the way of the future, er, except no, that is not true.
What about the frankly bizarre way payments are processed in the US, leaving you with pending and confirmed payments on your accounts, and the fact that there you pretty much pay for banking? More evidence of archaic ways of doing things, and more evidence the that US consumer isnāt always the appropriate comparison.
My point simply is different market, and I see no link with what the US consumer wants and what I want when using my card. Thereās already plenty of evidence that I have things very different (thank goodness).
That said: 3D securecode is 100% about making you the consumer liable as its way less easy to argue that your card has been stolen and was used unauthorised online. On the face of it I can see why this may be a good thing, though frankly I see it as a cynical mechanism for financial institutions to protect their profits. 3D securecode looks like itās giving you more control but is actually a way for institutions to push back in the event something goes wrong. Just my opinion!
Itās being used more and more online here, and as someone who does 99% of things online, itās become a necessary evil.
Unlike in-person use, online use is more global. Besides, Iāve heard plenty of people from virtually every country complain about 3-D Secure
Certainly, Iād like to see a good implementation of 3-D Secure. I just think a bank can succeed without it. It isnāt nearly as important, in my opinion, as something like Apple Pay to winning customers. Ideally, weāll be able to have our cake and eat it too getting all the features in 2018 
Only with the biggest banks, tons of banks in the US have free accounts.
In my experience, it really isnāt necessary. Lots of shops will use it if available, very few will reject a card if it isnāt available. Donāt get me wrong, Iām not trying to say itās not a useful feature to add! Simply that banks can and do succeed without offering it, and there are other features that would see far more daily use still missing. When you canāt have everything, priorities need to be made. I hope 2018 brings many, many features to Monzo!
I think we must shop in different places online @GalaxyMergirl. Also, I could not find a single free ATM when in the US.
E-commerce, while global has different levels of penetration in different markets. Even with my Monzo card, itās hard for me as a European to order from US retailers, to the point I barely bother. The reason is not because my card isnāt accepted, itās because of tax regulations, differences in my consumer rights, and the palaver of dealing with faulty merchandise from a retailer on the other side of the world. So here, we immediately see distinct markets develop. E-commerce is not really a free unfettered, borderless market.
Higher use of e-commerce = higher levels of fraud and more institutional demand for products such as SecureCode. It is reasonable to expect there to be more demand for SecureCode in different markets, depending on legislation and consumer rights. And here in Europe SecureCode seems to be increasingly the answer.
I think we must be! Iāve had plenty of places attempt (and fail) 3-D Secure, including with Monzo, but none ever refused a card for that. Thatās one problem with every acceptance issue comparison - our different shopping habits make the scale of issues very different at times.
As for free ATMs in the states, most are only free if the card has the same participating fee-free network (e.g. MoneyPass network ATMs take MoneyPass network cards for free, Allpoint ATMs and cards, Co-Op ATMs and cards, etc). Similar to the idea behind LINK, except British ATMs donāt bother charging for non-LINK cardsā¦ yet. I bet if a major British bank pulls out of LINK, they soon will!
Itās also worth noting that, like the UK, the US is a country where you really virtually never need cash. I probably spend under Ā£50 cash in an average year, and when I lived in the US, I spent under $50 cash.
Very true, I end up spending a lot in USD, but most of it isnāt from the US, itās from China (AliExpressā native pricing is usually USD, if you pick GBP prices include a markup and are higher).
3-D Secure is widely implemented, but in my online shopping habits, here in the UK, from both domestic and foreign sites, practically never required. If it fails due to lack of support, it fails. The transaction still approves and goes through.
Maybe we need a list of sites that actually mandate 3-D Secure so we can start nicely writing to them and asking them to reconsider?
I get asking a retailer to update their BIN so they can accept Monzo. I think asking institutions to rethink their fraud solution might be a harder sell.
Nevertheless, the idea made me smile (in a good way) and Iām pleased not everyone is as cynical as I am. I would immediately write off the idea of asking institutions/retailers not to use securecode. Itās a bit David and Goliath tbh, but without the happy ending where the little guy wins.
Iām not saying they shouldnāt use it. Simply that they shouldnāt decline if a card doesnāt support it
Part of the issue lays with the card networks. Compare it to EMV (chip). There the least secure party is liable. A shop isnāt liable for magstripe cloning fraud if the card used didnāt have a chip. Only if it had a chip but their system didnāt support chip.
With 3-D Secure the shop is liable for fraud unless 3-D Secure succeeds. It should be a least secure party system the way chip is.
Some of the newer cards are Mastercard (eg a debit card linked with the university of Singapore) but mostly Visa. If you look at the top 5 cards at Citibank, theyāre all with Visa.
There are more credit cards with Mastercard compared to the number of debit cards, but from my personal experience I probably can count on one hand the number of times Iāve seen someone I know use Mastercard.
When I worked in retail the ratio of Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards I saw was probably like 6: 3: 1