For me the community is one of the biggest strengths for Monzo. Itās a great product, iterates fast and has built up a loyal following. Though Iām not sure about the cash rewards thing, but this comment about investing in the community feels right. I will sing the praises of a product/community I love, and I find myself showing other people or talking about Monzo with them a lot.
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I love the idea, but I share concerns with others regarding people using referrals to earn a quick fiver and then having a ton of inactive accounts. Maybe the new referral would need to spent X amount before the referral amount is given out?
Also, how about a badge or something similar to the beta badge? 5, 10, 20 referrals gives you a badge on your profile to show off.
Also, itās a bit disheartening as Iāve referred a load of friends and family already and I didnāt use my golden tickets to do it, because sign ups were open anyway - just pointed them in the direction of the site after giving them a demo!
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Its a fair idea, passing on the benefits to other Monzo users, but I have to admit I feel a bit disheartened by this seeing as I have already got most of my family and friends onto Monzo. Im sure im not the only one in that boat either. I do like the previously suggested idea where you get rewards based on your activities in the app with Golden Tickets. Refer a friend, get a ticket. Have your salary paid in, golden ticket. At the end of the month, get a reward based on the amount of tickets you have.
Unless Iāve missed something - What are peoples concerns about inactive accounts?
Why does it matter to us (customers)?
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Itās quite a bit of work to get Ā£5 though, personally it wouldnāt sway my decision to join monzo or not.
I think getting interest would make it more interesting, something that is more long term. Maybe youād see people use the accounts longer term rather then sign up and just use the Ā£5.
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Broadly I agree but when you think about it Monzo only really sells itself once someone has started using it. At the end of the day if Monzo are prepared to have an acquisition cost of Ā£10/customer then it does make sense to give it to people, not to advertising companies.
Realistically though, I donāt expect people to change their bank for Ā£5. The only people who will bother will be those trying to game the system. It also creates an incentive for users to try and breach KYC which didnāt previously exist.
Thereās also a question of what the objective of Monzo advertising would be. When youāre already growing by 3,000 customers per day (and soon due to hit 1 million) is advertising really needed? Any advertising Monzo uses should likely be concentrated on 2 main factors:
Legitimising Monzo in the eyes of people who already know about Monzo but view things with an advertising budget as being more āproperā.
Reaching demographics and areas that Monzo has struggled to reach through its existing organic reach.
The problem with the suggested referral scheme is that it is likely weak in these areas, it doesnāt help to achieve the first objective at all as there are plenty of people who likely already know of people who use (and wonāt shut up about Monzo) but donāt want to use it themselves as they donāt view it as a proper bank and it doesnāt help with the second objective as the referrals will likely disproportionately targeting the same people that existing Monzo users have already been giving Golden Tickets to (mostly young and urban).
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It matters to Monzo who will be dishing out Ā£10 every time a new account gets referred. Feels like it could be abused.
As others have said though, itās a ton of work for a fiver
From a purely transactional perspective youāre right, it doesnāt matter. I think, though, that folk are wondering if this approach will actually meet Monzoās objectives.
As has been discussed, though, itās just experimental so hopefully Monzo will have some data you answer that question soon 
I appreciate that, and thatās absolutely something Monzo will be aware of (although like you and others have said, itās a lot of work for a fiver).
It just surprises me there is so much concern from Monzo customers, that they may have inactive accounts.
The other question isā¦ Do you think Monzo would even care if the accounts were inactive?
Iām not sure how the reporting works - But as Monzo approach 900,000 accounts, I wonder how many are actually active on a weekly basis.
I really really like the idea of directing advertising money to customers instead and I definitely think this would increase sign ups massively. However I see @Jackcrwhitney 's concerns over inactive accounts and people taking advantage. Perhaps the reward could be a temporarily boosted interest rate or something like that? That would give people an incentive to sign up and continue to use Monzo afterwards.
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I think they would. Letās try and think of whatās incentivising Monzo here - I think that theyāre trying to move from an impressive but flat growth rate to a hockey stick curve (exponential growth).
That growth only means something in the medium/long term if it drives profit, otherwise it just adds to the costs that Monzo are saying they want to eliminate.
So I reckon the strategy is to offer a small incentive then bank* on the product being really good, making customers want to stay and ultimately go #fullmonzo, driving revenueā¦
*no pun intended
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I love a good banking pun 
On the flip side - If they were gearing up for another investment round - 1.5 million accounts (with 500,000 inactive), look better and more desirable than 1 million accounts.
I could be completely wrong with how these things work/are reported, so Iām purely airing my thoughts out loud (always dangerous).
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I like this. Iād need to sit down and think about the maths, but maybe 1pc interest for a period (year, quarter, month?) on funds held by Monzo per referral for both parties? Thatād make the customer base more sticky and possibly help bump Monzo up the best buy tables. Get the maths right and it might even be cheaper than the fiver each modelā¦?
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I think this is all down to how the investment works. I agree that for general marketing purposes itās super powerful to say āweāve 2m customersā (or whatever) - and that in and of itself can drive growth.
But for significant investment, Iām sure potential investment funds would be all over the detail - number of customers, churn, percentage of daily/weekly active users etc, so Iām not sure that growing an inactive user base would show much more than an increased marketing burn rate.
(Also thinking aloud, so quite possibly wrong!)
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damn it Jordan, you couldnāt have done this when I gave out like 5 golden tickets 
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Active users are far more important than total users because active users can potentially earn Monzo money whereas inactive users canāt.
The latest figures Iāve seen show that about a third of Monzoās users active active on a daily basis & just under 80% are active on a monthly basis. Thatās impressive compared to most companies (in general) & better than similar FinTechs.
Iām also told U.K. challenger bank Monzo now has 630,000 current account customers, of which 200,000 are daily active users, 360,000 are weekly active users and 500,000 are monthly active users. (In both Revolut and Monzoās case, active users are defined as making at least one financial transaction.)
From here.
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Iām not financially savvy by any means, but didnāt they release their report the other month where they stated it costs them Ā£8 per user for support? Were they factoring in inactive users into that too? Not sure
It was Ā£10 per user but I doubt that they were including inactive users for that metric because inactive users donāt make support queries.
Weāre way off topic here btw CC?
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This! 
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Exactly my thoughts Peter, if properly calculated I think it could be really effective. Glad you agree. I think something like 1% for a quarter, should be enough to incentivise current Monzo users to actively refer. Probably not wise to allow the interest rate to stack but stacking the time period could work, i.e. refer 5 people and you get 5 months of 1%. Again it would need a lot of calculations and research to find that sweet spot but I think there is one.
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