Trouble in high street bank

After having a great morning in my local high street (my company account problem) there was a massive queue in branch, with only one person serving☹️ Everyone was mumbling and rolling eyes, and then it kicked off with a guy in the wheelchair demanding serving now. Jeeeze this adult really kicked off about blah…blah rubbish…and I quickly thought thank god Monzo doesn’t have this rubbish. Yes sometimes you need a face to face bank…only rarely for me. Wish my company would bank with Monzo , my life would be so less stressful.

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Apparently, you might have had to wait much longer for an answer from Monzo.

https://community.monzo.com/t/3-hours-for-chat-support/81816

I do think there are advantages to both models for customers.

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But you send the message and get on with your day, you’re not standing in a line unable to do anything else

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And you’re not restricted to work hour opening times or having to travel and find parking in a congested town centre.

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Or making small talk about the weather while in the queue

It’s quite nice today though. Definitely a nip in the air but what do you expect at this time of year?

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Or avoiding eye contact with those salesmen in the street… “Excuse me, can I have a moment of your time - how much are you paying for your electricity?” :laughing:

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Surely these banks with branches all offer telephone customer service too? Is it just me? I don’t understand what the problem is here.

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I cant fathom out why people love bank branches so much.

Last week I opened up an under 19s account for my 13 yr old daughter with BOS online, was told the usual, take ID to branch, etc to complete the process.

I turned up at about 4pm, stood at the “help desk” for about 2 minutes until someone that was chatting to a colleague came over after they finally noticed me. I explained that we were in to provide ID to finalise the application I had done online.

Got sat down and provided the reference number, was told that was no good and I needed the sort code and account number (of the unopened account!!), luckily enough we had it in an email that specified to take the REFERENCE NUMBER to the branch.

After 5 mins of faffing about the woman couldnt help, stating that she was actually from “upstairs” and needed a manager. She went away and came back and said she now needed a “personal advisor” - one came over a few mins later with a tablet in their hand and after about 10 minutes of pretty much repeating the whole application process I was told “right it’s done” card will be with you in 5 days, etc…

Total time taken about 45 mins.

Now bearing in mind I had done probably 90% of the application in the house this wasnt exactly the time wasting experience I was expecting.

I don’t care how long Monzo take for resolution, at least Im not wasting my life away whilst waiting for staff to effectively not help me.

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I’m a recent convert to Monzo and I love it.

My previous bank closed the branch on my nearest town so to visit the next nearest one was a 45 minute drive and as it’s on the top of a hill by the time I’d wheeled my chair up the 16% hill (no parking at the top) I was so knackered I couldn’t talk to the staff until I’d sat for a while and taken all of my inhalers. Then the really scary run back down the hill to where I’d parked the car. I’m so glad I don’t have to do it any more, I can use the little energy I have to do more useful things like online shopping :grin:

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And I can put the cash deposits when I need them in at my shop next door -and I can control when the strip is active or not…

Lots of little perks.

I’ve made so many referrals with Octopus Energy I’ve paid nothing for over 2 years now - that always shut them up when you say you pay nothing and walk away :wink:

Fintech’s wiped off a few Billion of the value of HBSC last month - so won’t be long before they are all gone. Mean while Monzo was valued at 1 Billion back in 2018…

You know Monzo doesn’t make any profit, right? It makes a loss. I think it is a little premature to say that HSBC and all other legacy banks will be gone soon!

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It isn’t that all traditional banks are incompetent, just that some individuals are or that some banks have poor policies.

Whilst changing my name on my bank accounts I had a different experience with different banks. Some, like Santander, the person was able to quickly look at the sheet and, although never had the situation before, processed the request in under 5 minutes. Barclays took about 25 minutes and it took 6 members of staff and the manager to decide whether my evidence was sufficient, but they did it in the end. Nationwide outright refused to change the name, even though it was on my passport and DL - they said I have to open a new account.

So, experience varies really. My best customer service experiences with a traditional bank have always been with Santander. I’ve had wildly different experiences with other banks. Barclays has caused multiple inconveniences to me so I moved away from them. This may vary depending on your location. I haven’t used Monzo’s that much but when I have used it they’ve been great also.

Theranos also had a $10bn valuation at one point.

Yes but they were victims of their own downfall - I can’t see Monzo going that way at all.

Erm… HSBC employs around 240k people and makes about $5bn in profit every 3 months.

I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon. It’s valued at around 125bn so the odd billion change is minimal.

Also, the recent share price change won’t be too do with fintech, but concerns about global trade wars, tariffs and the situation in Hong Kong.

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I’m a shareholder and while I wish Monzo every success, there are many places where Monzo can misstep.

These could range from bungling their US expansion, to not generating enough income to be sustainable or getting a reputation for poor customer service etc. Also, charging for app features could also turn sentiment against them or rolling out poor products.

Edit: you need to look at the experiences of some of the .com firms that where really famous at the start of this century and their share prices