Also, to come back to this, while what Wise and Revolut provide does help, unfortunately itās only half the puzzle. For example, Wise only allows US-based customers to do direct debits with their US details (itās ācoming soonā for other countries), and neither Wise nor Revolut are able to link into Zelle, the main fast payment system in the US. I do hope that once Monzo becomes a bank in its own right, that it can manage what the Canadian banks did and let UK residents open full US accounts without having to actually be in the US, and to a degree vice versa (my Revolut account is my main UK banking presence right now, and while it does the job for the few things I need it for at the moment, on a certain level Iād prefer working with Monzo over them- for example, were I to want to pay more for a premium banking experience as I need it, Monzoās shorter commitment periods for Plus and Premium are more appealing than Revolutās 12-month contracts).
Get yourself moved over - Revolut are not a proper bank and have been known to close accounts and keep money for sometimes up to 8 months! with no recourse as theyāre not a bank so get away with it
Theyāre not a bank.
But they are still regulated
In my case Iām in the reverse of your situation- Iām US-resident, so my options for a UK banking presence are very very limited. If I drop Revolut, then at the moment thereās only Wise (also not a bank) or piggybacking on my sisterās HSBC Premier status (US-based Premier customers can share their status with up to 4 family members, which could then be leveraged to set up Premier accounts in other countries).
Oh, I assumed you were UK based
No, Iām not, thatās why I mostly frequent the US sub-board and mentioned having a US-issued AmEx (as well as banking across the US-Canada border- Iāve also got a Canada-issued AmEx and a couple bank accounts there). If I was UK-based Iād already have a Starling account as well as Monzo.
Just browsing and thought Iād check out the Monzo US website, got to say Iām very disappointed. Compared to the UK site it doesnāt look great, nothing about it is inviting or shouts out sign up and join the Monzo US journey.
I really want Monzo US to be a success, therefore I hope the website is updated soon.
Granted, on this front, part of it is that Monzo US doesnāt have that many features to advertise at the moment. Right now the US account is just a prepaid card product, and a pretty basic one at that, aside from Pots and budgeting functions. For example, taking the current content of the UK page-
Plus and Premium? Not available in the US.
Interest on savings in Pots? Also no.
Direct debit management? Not here yet, and given the nature of the US payments system Iām not entirely sure itāll be able to be brought over in that form.
That being said, style-wise it could definitely do with some polishing, at least mirroring the formatting of the UK front page. But nothing about it screams ācheapā so far, just āgenericā. Nothing distinctly āMonzoā about it, is how Iād put it.
Absolutely, there are sometimes problems related to them not being āreal banksā, and therefore the account details not integrating fully into the payment system, or being recognised properly by businesses.
There is also the possibility of the card BIN becoming a problem, as discussed above. My Revolut card is a āBritish cardā because of the BIN, even though I can put lots of different currencies on it. That can cause dynamic currency conversion or issues with foreign merchants in some instances.
We are getting closer to it, but at the moment itās still not possible to have a truly global account.