Under 18 and student accounts!

I solved that issue by getting a job :wink:

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That depends on how much money you are given. E.g. if you have a 2 parent family both on around 25-30k I can see why you would struggle due to not “qualifying” for 100% funding. That way you have to get your parents to help fund you, especially when you privately rent in 2/3rd year seeing as they pay it in 2/3 lump sumps.

If you come from a low income household they way they pay you is beneficial. I qualified for bursaries, grants and full funding and having a lump sum in my account every time they paid out was beneficial for me as I always had enough money in my account. Never even had to consider an overdraft, still don’t have one now

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As an ex-student I would agree with this in theory, but it just wouldn’t get students attention.

When I was looking for my student account my question wasn’t ‘What account with help me manage my money’ it was ‘what account will give me the largest overdraft of ‘free’ money’?

Consequently I went with the co-op and their £1500, £1700 and then £2000 (increasing each year) OD limit and didn’t pay nearly enough of it back until they said ‘We’re going to end the free overdraft in two months, bye’.

At which point I had to sell a bunch of things that I’d love to still have in order to not be stung by their interest. sigh

My story sadly isn’t the only one I know of, indeed the stereotype of student life even encourages an unhealthy attitude to finances and it’s not until reality hits a number of years (or months) after you graduate that (at least in my case) you begin to look at fees with banks as more of a helpful prod to manage your money rather than just a barrier on the pros and cons list.

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Yeah, I think you’re right there

I think HSBC gave me a £1750 overdraft at some point which was pretty ridiculous given I probably only had 2-3x that amount moving through my account in a year!

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Absolutely. I think that there needs to be a re-think around financial education before a fee featuring overdraft would be accepted by students.

A friend of mine had a student account with Barclays (I think) that had a pretty good system in that they offered a large overdraft for free, then decreased it each year after graduating bit by bit so there was never a huge chunk that needed re-paying (thanks Co-op).

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This is why I would love finance to be taught in education. Financial Studies would be a lot more useful than Business Studies, and could incorporate the latter.

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Students are definitely a demographic whose attention needs to be captured by monzo.

In general, students will not accept an overdraft with fees/interest to pay. They want perks and ‘free’ money. And they need support because as @GalaxyMergirl says, student finance England payout loans in the most user unfriendly way… After rent has already come out when your balance was £0 or lower.

Students need that interest free cushion, but they need to be taught not to use it just because it’s there. I made the mistake of using my overdraft by Christmas in my first year, and when the credit limit increased each year, I also spent that. Now I’m saving less than I could be for nice things to buy or do because I’m stuck paying off my overdraft.

Personally, I think monzo needs to continue innovating and finding a new way to incentivise students and young people. If I knew the answer to this, I would be rich, but there has to be another way and I think monzo is best placed to figure it out.

The point about young people and social media though :+1:. Young people spreading the word on social media will be a huge boost for monzo as it becomes more widely used. I live up north and I’m also the only person I know that uses monzo despite showing countless people how much better than legacy banks it is. I only heard of them because I have a friend who moved to London. Monzo needs to spread the word through universities around the country through campus reps or something like that.

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the answer must be to get hold of the “student” demographic before they go off to Uni and have to try and sort their own finances out with little guidance except for their peers , they should be guided by experiencing budgeting features and hopefully parents with some financial expertise when they are 15 or 16 or even younger

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Of course it all comes down to educating young people on finances in the fist place, I think monzo university could help in that, but to do that, it has to offer its services to them and attract them initially to do use the services.

Monzo can’t control what young people’s parents teach their kids but it could offer a helping hand. It’s done a pretty good job at helping me with my budgeting so I think it has the potential to go even further. If it wants to become people’s financial control centre, it would be useful show people how they can control their financial lives effectively and efficiently or point them in the right direction.

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Monzo or Starling I think do an excellent job of showing what you spend where, how often etc and do undoubtably help with budgeting if you want / need it

in fairness Monzo have tried doing this kind of approach - maybe students only like free stuff - no everybody likes free stuff :slight_smile: - but Monzo / Starling is a business which needs to make a profit to exist - how much would the offer need to be to attract the ongoing loyalty ? - not sure loyalty to brand exists anymore with 0% balance transfers on debt etc etc :slight_smile: , but all seems to have gone quiet recently , presumably if it was beneficial for on boarding Uni students Monzo would be continuing with it ( are they - don’t know :slight_smile: )

so little time so much to do :slight_smile:

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I totally agree with most of this feedback! (Gosh, this received more replies than I expected!)

I think it would be very difficult to get students and young people to accept overdrafts with strings attached, but there really has to be a way to add incentives for them to manage their money responsibly.

I like the small idea that @Jim1701 had about the slow decrease in overdraft limits, which could help set people back on track if they do badly! I feel like there has to be some way to push people in the right direction, though. Perhaps there could be some way to apply gamification to good habits in a similar way that Monzo does for referrals. :thinking:

I feel really passionate about getting young people on board, though. I totally agree with you, @jamiedjohnson94! Monzo is the kind of thing that younger people could make explode in popularity. For example, look at Discord! I have so many friends who have stopped using Skype completely and have switched to Discord, simply because they provide a more polished service and have a meme-loving team backing it and providing awesome support. (Discord’s Twitter comes to mind: https://twitter.com/discordapp​)

I hold the strong opinion that if Discord can grow to 87 million users [source] in a few years and start to replace Skype, not even by providing more features other than a new look - they didn’t have video calling or screen sharing for over a year, which Skype definitely did - that Monzo could replace the old, traditional-style of bank that is literally stereotyped to be bad because so many people dislike them. (Gringott’s bank and all the money-hoarding goblins from Harry Potter, comes to mind when I think about banks. :yum:)

If Monzo was able to partner with just a couple universities and a cool offer, I bet it’d spread like a wildfire.

Anyways, I’d like to say thank you for the awesome replies and support so far! I was a little nervous about making the post, but I just had a rant flowing and I had to share it. Y’all are awesome! :blush:

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Well, I think it’s an important topic and one that’s been talked about. I definitely agree with opening the Monzo account to teens. Generally I’m opposed to any age restrictions that don’t need to exist (especially ones for marketing purposes, like Vodafone’s new VOXI plans that are limited to 26 and under and are way cheaper; though those also have massive net neutrality violations… they’re so cheap!). And age restrictions on voting, at the least I’d drop that to 16… but that’s me.

This would work well for more than just teens :slight_smile: I think it’s a great idea!

:unicorn: :unicorn: :unicorn: glad you did, please continue to join in! Welcome!

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Old thread, but stumbled here after I planned to make a post on student loans but thought I’d do a search first. Thought I’d throw in my 2 cents.

As a student, Monzo’s budgeting and money tracking are holding such promise. I could not be more excited for the spending redesign that’s in the works, I think it’s going to help me ten-fold!

But I love simplicity, and as such I’m dying to close down my legacy bank. I’ve transferred all bills and loans to Monzo, and I never use my legacy card.

The only reason my legacy account is still open is to feed that interest-free overdraft into my Monzo when there are payments I must meet. For the most part I do a good job of keeping that balance on £0.00.

My overdraft is small, but incredibly useful given my “income” (most disgusting loan) comes only at the start of each term. There are times toward the end of term where I have to dip into it. E.g. where I pay the house electricity bill, and have to wait a day or two for my housemates to pay back their share.

I know you want an incentive for students to not use overdrafts, so perhaps offering smaller ones e.g. £500, which if you go further than 500 in debt then has fees attached, could work. And winning all the student favour with this offering will mean more people will see Monzo university and in turn get a little smarter with their money :nerd_face:

Tl;dr please add interest-free student overdrafts :heart:
Edit: loan -> overdraft for clarity

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+1million likes for using the search first!

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Why should students get interest free loans, why not apprentices, those on national minimum wage, nurses, etc!? There are many good cases where people have little income and would appreciate free credit, but to pick only one of those groups and exclude the others is unfair. Someone on minimum wage may be struggling to keep their roof over their head and feed their family, and I think they are as equally deserving of consideration as a student.

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But banks don’t give interest free loans because students are deserving, they give them in the hope that they are potentially a higher earner and will stay with the bank, making them profit in the long term.

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This is the class of people I think Monzo should try to target. People being screwed over by traditional banks. People for whom Monzo’s budgeting features will be really useful. People who might remember that Monzo got them out of their financial muddle and will trust Monzo for years to come.

The market for student bank accounts is fiercely competitive and relies on students not switching away to a better deal in the future. I don’t think Monzo should become involved in this “game” - in fact, one of the things I think Monzo should do is make sure it’s easy to switch away if you find a better deal. Monzo should ensure that their product is an excellent deal for the majority of people, but inevitably there will be some people who don’t “fit” (e.g. people who withdraw lots of cash abroad).

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Sometimes overdrafts are the only way some students can live, period (for lack of a better phrase). I relied on my overdraft during my first year as my loan didn’t cover my rent.

It’s not just for free money, some actually really need it and rely on it and wouldn’t be able to go to uni without it.

Just food for thought.

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As is the case with many lower paid workers

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Right but interest free overdrafts are an incentive to students to go to university, to better themselves and get a higher paying job (that’s the plan anyway).

If lower paid workers were given the same privileges, there would be very little incentive to get a higher paying job or to leave a lower paid job etc.

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