Youâre right, it wasnât a complicated decision, for us; choose X, Y or Z. But do you know all of the implications for each option for Monzo?
Itâs great for us to have the choice, âpower back to the peopleâ we shout, channelling our inner Corbyn, but should we have had the choice is my point.
Itâs not exactly rocket science. A cap on cost per user/subsidised by heavy spenders. Vs fair charges. Vs equal charges. And I can tell you Monzo were split internally on the choice (based on public voting at least).
It may not be rocket science for you (although subsidising costs via customer behaviour, versus a fair and attainable charge for all, reeks of old bank, but I digress), as it seems you have FS knowledge, but what, if like the majority of the UK, you didnât? How does this appear to you? Does this honesty belie confidence or uncertainty?
I suppose Iâm thinking about Monzo at scale, not as an exclusive play-thing of the fintech enthusiast, although even for me, who has FS experience too, should they really be asking people how to price?
I really donât have FS knowledge. Iâm just a researcher. And I saw the irony that the people voted for less equal/fair option. The only uncertain part I saw was Option 4 (which also skewed dialog away from Options 1-3).
If anything, this DD debacle is showing more uncertainty. I am mildly glad I had no intention to fully port across - early morning notifications for direct debits, no retrying, no overdraft to protect a negative balance. This is a rollout into an incomplete system to reduce costs.
Fair and equal are not the same, necessarily. I think itâs very fair that one who uses a service reasonably should be able to benefit from the overall profits of the community and their own interchange revenue generated when at home to get a reasonable amount of free transactions abroad.
Remember, while not enough to cover costs yet, your usage at home does generate revenue for Monzo. Interchange when you go shopping with your debit card, interest not paid to you on your balance, etc. Thus a small amount of abroad usage as part of a wider mix for free is extremely fair.
It is not, however, equal. If someone abuses the product and uses it primarily as a way to withdraw cash abroad, the overall mix of their usage is less likely to work out profitable.
Fair does not mean charging everyone the same, and it doesnât mean having to line-item bill for every cost of business incurred. Thatâs the same logic shops use for card fees (ignoring that it costs them money to take cash, also, usually more). Fair also doesnât mean that some services canât be profitable, companies need to make a profit to survive.
Fair means not price-gouging and being transparent and honest. I think the new rates are extremely fair. Someone who lives in the UK and uses the card as part of their daily life will benefit from some free holiday cash as part of their overall usage mix. Someone who simply wants to convert large amounts of cash can do so for a reasonable fee, with a reasonable profit margin but no out-of-proportion price gouging (such as the ridiculous fixed transaction fees Lloyds charges for overseas debit card usage).
Yeah, I should have been more clear, that wasnât purely in response to you, Iâve seen a lot of people saying the fee-free allowance followed by a profitable fee is unfair. It really isnât, itâs a benefit you get as part of an overall usage mix for someone primarily living and spending here in the UK, and one youâre âpayingâ for through your daily usage.
Outsourcing is a quicker short-term fix. Payment-processing has been moved in-house, and there are plans to move the chat system in-house. But it is all development time & cost. Even looking into different forum packages is a cost.
As to why new accounts go on hold? See here. Itâs a legitimate reason, even if thereâs a false positive now and again.
This does link in with the original points in the topic - development has somewhat paused while the current account is rolled out. Iâm holding out for now, but I canât say Monzo has revolutionised my spending habits.
Outsourcing some non-core features just makes sense. I wouldnât expect Monzo or any other business to start writing huge codes to set-up these sort of forums⊠Would you?
I bank with Barclays for business and moved from First Direct to Monzo for personal banking.
I definitely donât feel that I get any particular âloveâ from Barclays but they have some good things with their app (such as their direct call function).
I have always found the Monzo chat to be fairly responsive and usually responding within a few minutes, although sometimes longer. However, I donât really do anything complex with my personal account so never had a reason to want an immediate response (and I would imagine Iâd be VERY frustrated if I couldnât get an immediate response).
One thing I would add is that I had occasion to raise a chargeback this week and I had expected Monzo to be a bit more helpful. I had to push back against going online and filling out a form. It really felt like I should have raised the query by chat and it should have just happened (i.e. I should have received the credit) and then they should have asked for more info.
Hey Dan! Weâll be publishing a post on the blog about our plans for the coming year, likely next week
Totally agree with your suggestion and Iâm keen for us to do more âprogress reportâ style posts like this one on Android, or this one from the end of last year. Let me know what you think/if thatâs the kind of thing youâd find useful.
Hopefully theyâll help keep everyone in the loop! Will post the 2018 one here once itâs published.
PS I hope someone was able to respond to your query?!
Iâve always found that our staff base reflects our community base. If the vote had been put to staff only, I think itâs fairly likely the outcome would have been the same.
Thatâs just not really how we operate. Even if it were the product managers that made the decision weâd consult the wider company and everyone would have the opportunity to weigh in. I understand that not all companies operate like this but for me itâs one of the truly great things about working here - everyoneâs opinion matters.
Oh wide consultation is great, itâs just that a vote (especially a first-past-the-post vote) is a terrible way to do it. Iâm glad that for debit card top-up fees Monzo have gone for the former and not the latter.