Being able to budget when I am on a business trip (within a daily spend limit) or on a personal holiday (to a saved amount) through use of an indicator that I can check up on myself or set notifications for if I am overspending would be useful for the duration of the trip.
i am going abroad next week, is this feature live yet? how can i find out what the current exchange rate is with Mondo? so i can decide whether i use the card or exchange some cash before?
you will lose about 3 or 4 cents in the euro if the exchange rate stays the same by exchanging cash at a post office / travel agent or bank rather than using your card - Ive used it all the time abroad and never been dissapointed with the exchange rate compared to buying cash before hand
I’d use the card and use an ATM. Check https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/
I’ve recently been to Singapore and found the exchange rate worked out better than all the offers I got to exchange cash for.
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Having just done some credit card reconciliation after a recent trip abroad, it reminded me to add some thoughts to the previous excellent mockups and ideas from community members. Hope these aren’t too late.
- On the mockups, the largest text and most prominent position is given to “amount saved” and 'exchange rate". Whilst both of those are interesting, and from Mondo’s point of view are marketing… as JamesBell mentioned, day-to-day it would be much more useful to highlight things like “total amount spent”, “total spent today” and “pending transactions”.
- Regarding “pending transactions”, they don’t seem to appear anywhere in the screen mocks, and in fact this was the most important data while I was away. I think these might be “non settled” amounts in credit card speak. When I was abroad, many credit card transactions seemed to sit marked as “pending” (in another card provider’s app), and in some cases it took 3-6 days for them to become proper transactions. If you are using your card a few times every day abroad, the backlog of pending transactions is important to know. And thus “predicted spend/predicted balance” would be useful.
- In a few places the credit card I was using was rejected, and sometimes those events showed up briefly as phantom transactions. Not sure what the process is, but it might be good to show declines (and reason?) as well as settled transactions. maybe make this an optional display item?
- Caching maps etc would be good, as sometimes data is expensive, slow, or too valuable to use when abroad.
- Could integration with journey planners like TripIt help at all? I think you can export data from TripIt, so maybe that would help the Mondo app get context? Or possibly export place data from Mondo and add it to the TripIt schedule as a record of places visited.
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Hi! New user of about two weeks - and also going away shortly, to Morocco - Have any of these features rolled out yet? I’d be very eager to try them out…
Also, off topic: Is your forum system off the shelf or hand rolled? I like the smartphone layout handling!
This all looks very positive.
I am going travelling for 12-18 months in July so any features for international use you want to add, please feel free.
What do I need to do to have my identity verified? The increased limits would be of significant use when I go.
Thanks. Great progress so far on the bank / app etc. Keep up the good work.
I believe your identity is checked when you receive your card (here). Talk to the in-app customer support to confirm it 
Brilliant idea, this will make my life so much easier!
Do you have a timeframe for when this will launch?
Hi Phil,
I will be visiting Sri Lanka next month and planning to take my mondo card but couldn’t see what the exchange rate for SL rupee was on Mastercard exchange tool. Have you done a comparison of the rates?
What about using the card in the country for transactions and atms, any issues or tips?
Regards
Imran
The exchange rate you get on Mondo is very similar to what you get if you check Google or any other neutral service for the exchange rate.
ATMs worked fine, but beware there is a 40,000 rupees per day limit. I used Commercial Bank ATMs.
As with any card you use, make sure you do not accept the exchange rate given by the ATM. Ask it to charge your card in rupees, not pounds. Very important! Otherwise you will not get the best rate.
It would be great to get a map indicating spending areas for just everyday spends too. One of the things I loved about old Apple photos was going to a map and seeing all the places I’d taken pictures, this would be great to see with purchases too
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Love it. Great idea.
I agree. I have no interest in meaningless ‘money saved’ based on a generic bank (they can differ alot depending on the account and type of transaction) and it should definitely not be front and centre. You have to work with exchange rate comparisons.
I want to know the 3 things that actually describe the situation:
-Minute by Minute Mid Market Rates at time of purchase: (Has it gone up or down since previous closing spot rate. Weekly Mini-graphs would be very useful in future app).
-Closing Spot Rate: (The actual daily rate that most bureau de changes use).
-The Mastercard Conversion rate being offered (Based on closing spot rate: normally only 0.03% worse).
This makes me make intelligent decisions with very little information.
Excellent job by the way.
For each transaction, I want to know the amount I paid on top of the mid market rate and the closing spot rate.
I really like this idea but could you also consider that sometimes holidays cover multiple countries (road trips etc.) it would be good see see these figures for those trips also.
I think this feature is great but may classify each new place as a new trip. It would be good to add dates of a holiday and any transactions between these dates be grouped like in the designs. The locale effects for rates etc would still be very valid and useful if abroad but specifying dates also makes this useful for UK trips.
And when you are a bank it’s also good for fraud prevention and false positives. If I say I am in Dubai and then you see transactions in Dubai it is likely me. Whereas sudden transactions in that location without any awareness from me may be fraudulent.
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How about being able to tag other payments as part of the same trip? You have the payments made in the other country, but before you even get there you probably have already spent money on flights, accommodation, etc, which should be linked to the trip. That way you can see the total cost of the entire trip more easily.
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It would be useful to have a feature which shows stats for what the average Mondo user spends in each location.
Use case:
-I’m deciding on whether to visit Berlin for the weekend, but have a strict £200 budget 
-So I open Mondo and check what the ‘typical’ visitor spends per day/week in Berlin, all based on accurate Mondo user data.
-I rejoice/cry depending on whether I can afford said trip
Perhaps you could drill down another level and check the average accommodation, food, and entertainment costs for the location too.
And congrats on the banking license! Awesome news.
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