When you pay for an item in a shop and enter your pin/pay by contactless there are milliseconds for the bank to either accept or reject it. If it times out, it’s rejected.
So my version of the idea was that at first your transaction gets declined if you don’t have enough money, then you get the notification and it withdraws the required money from your Overflow pot. You then try the transaction again.
NB: I’ve edited my other pot to make this more clear.
The flow is like this ->
-> transaction declines
-> monzo sends notification asking you if you want to move the declined amount from a specific pot to your main account to cover the transaction
-> you either accept/reject
-> monzo makes the pot withdrawal
-> you try paying for the item again
yes this is what i am talking about
If your card is stolen, Monzo will refund any losses. So the thief will be effectively be spending Monzo’s money.
@kauna_m @awjdean So it would be declined then you move funds then make a new transaction. Got you. I thought you meant in the first transaction 
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oh no thats not what i meant sorry. Should’ve been clearer
Exactly. It’s basically a way of quickly withdrawing the correct amount for the transaction.
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I do this frequently, I don’t like to keep money in my main account. Sometimes random payments come out months after you think you’ve cancelled something, but keeping money in a pot stops this happening.
It is awkward but usually just takes 10 seconds to move the money so I just do this - usually it’s self service tills so not bad, and if someone is serving me I just say ‘Sorry, just a sec, forgot to move money into my main account’ - no ones ever really that judgey.
The problem with having a pot where money would come out of by default is this is the same as just having it in your main balance surely?
What I’d much rather is being able to select any retailer in my transaction history, or standing order/direct debit payment, and select which pot it should deduct payments from. So Sainsburys will always be paid out of my grocery pot, and my Thames Water and nPower payments always come out of my Bills pot and anything new/random comes out of my main balance.
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actually it’s not the same as having it in your main account. The money never leaves if the transaction never declined. Also if we factor in the time it takes to tell the person sorry plus adding money back into your main account and compare it to monzo simply doing this for you, i think theres a pretty good difference. I’ve noticed notifications on monzo are pretty fast so the time would be shorter. Furthermore, one of the key benefits i would highlight is automation.
Why can’t you just check your balance before you approach the till, rather than waiting for the cashier to effectively remind you to do so?
So you like to move your money into Pots all the time, but if that behaviour is, on balance, making your life more difficult, why do you do it?
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There might be a misconception about why i’m proposing this feature. The idea isn’t to wait for your transaction to decline. It’s for the cases where you forget to add money to your main account. I’ve noticed my card tends to decline when i make smaller everyday transactions and I don’t think anyone really checks their account every time they want to make an everyday transaction.
People have rainy day funds kept somewhere in their bank. It’s not like people want a rainy day necessarily but its more like them guarding against it.
So this feature is for those situations.
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I thought it was tho
I would counter that most people don’t keep their current account balance so low that everyday transactions are declined.
It’s what a current account is for, spending. I certainly wouldn’t want my Rainy Day fund just being used up because I haven’t checked my app for a few days.
It’s not about keeping the account balance low. Everyday transactions add up and before you know it your account declines.
I didn’t say i would like to wait for my transaction to decline so monzo takes money from a pot and adds to my current account. I said when it declines it’ll be cool if monzo transfers the declined amount to my current account from perhaps a pot i’ve designated. Two different things
I have had a similar situation before. Easy to go on a weekly food shop and forget to transfer money.
I use the overdraft feature and IFTTT. I spend £80 on food, go overdrawn by £60 but IFTTT recognises the transaction as groceries so moves the money.
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