Tether the phone to the card

[Hamilton (Cliff Ettridge)]

Hi Monzo. Have you considered putting some sort of NFC or GPS technology into the card that can be tethered to your smart phone so that if the card is every more than 100metres away from the phone then it automatically freezes. Most people are carrying card and phone together so if they are separated it’s probably because one or the other has been pinched. Perhaps an optional feature?

[Jill (Jill Hayes)]

Good idea, but not for me unfortunately! My app is on my tablet, which I don’t always have with me. So unless it can be turned off, my card would end up useless

[Hamilton (Cliff Ettridge)]

Agreed. Would have to be optional function for when out on the town.

[anon70107404]

@Hamilton

Have you considered putting some sort of NFC or GPS technology into the card that can be tethered to your smart phone so that if the card is every more than 100metres away from the phone then it automatically freezes.

• NFC works over too small a distance?
• Would card require a separate RFID chip?
• Additional cost to embed NFC?
• Would GPS tech fit in a debit card?
• Additional cost of GPS tech?
• How would GPS embedded in cars be powered?
• What happens if phone runs out of power?
• What if I want to use card without having phone with me?
• What happens if technology identifies transaction as location of HQ of firm rather than the actual location?

Would it not be easier for App to send physical location and flag a potential issue if a transaction appears to originate from somewhere different?

[Chapuys (Kevyn)]

A small enough battery to fit into a debit card for a GPS device. I have a keyfinder and the keyring part still needs a battery and its lifespan is so awful to the point its just a decoration on my keys now.

[Drew58 (Drew - Joint account feature parity please Monzo)]

I like the idea, however I feel it would have potential to lead to problems.
Do Monzo not use phone location and Card useage anyway already?

[Jill (Jill Hayes)]

Completely agree with that one😊

[KoalaKorr (Aleksandra)]

Urm…maybe have this as an option…i like to use revolut for holidays and have back up cards left in the hotel/apartment as a back up just in case I loose or get my card stolen. Wouldn’t want my monzo card frozen in that instance

[dinkyinki]

There is on Starling ‘location based security’ which according to the description takes account of the phone location in authorising a transaction. Never tested it. l assume it may work if l was in the UK and my card was attempted to be used in another country, or another city buy perhaps not so accurate for phone and card separated by 100m!

Intrigued to understand how such a process works, would Starling (or any other Bank offering the service) ping the mobile to get location or maybe regularly poll where the mobile is. The latter being maybe a little sinister

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

Here’s my best guess (Monzo [probably] won’t confirm this) on how Monzo’s location based security works -

Any problems with hopping countries quickly?

My assumption is that location based security is used to check your location (the location of your phone) vs where your ‘card present’ transactions are being made. If the transaction’s not being made in the same place as your location, it would be more likely to be flagged as potentially fraudulent. So it should be helpful if you switch that setting on. But if you don’t have a data connection, Monzo will use other methods to check whether the transaction is fraudulent & their checks are designe…

@dinkyinki

Intrigued to understand how such a process works, would Starling (or any other Bank offering the service) ping the mobile to get location or maybe regularly poll where the mobile is. The latter being maybe a little sinister

Here’s a bit of detail on how it works -

Use triangulation instead of GPS

We actually do exactly this already The key phrase for iOS is “Significant Location Change”, which is activated when switching cell towers, and not by GPS. As a result, this feature does not drain your battery like GPS would. We regularly run power profiling as part of development, because we care a lot about battery drain too. tl;dr We’re doing the same thing as Dark Sky Perhaps we should add this to our FAQ? Thanks for the feedback @keirwilliams

[dinkyinki]

Thanks… Interesting.

Dark Sky is a great weather app too