Those who use Monzo as your full time current account and have ditched the big name banks, what are your thoughts? I’m keen to ditch Barclays all together and shrink my banking footprint. Would anyone advise this move? I’m still using it as a cash card at the moment.
No regrets. I left HSBC in September
I’ve done it since last summer, and had no issues whatsoever. Big fan of the service and have signed up most of my close friends, and many not-so-close ones too!
You can keep your Barclays account open if you want a backup but I’ve never needed to use my spare RBS account. (I keep it ‘just in case’ - I’ve transferred some money over to it so I could check out of ASOS quickly using Apple Pay for example, but I’ve never felt I had to use it instead of Monzo for anything.)
Just do it. No regrets. Plus side of no Apple Pay yet is all the compliments I get on the colour of the debit card
These threads are on same lines - Might help you make your mind.
Awesome! I may have to start moving over and go #FullMonzo
It’s definitely a head turner!
And just for another perspective I actually went to Barclays after staying with Monzo for 3 months. I still use Monzo daily but using Barclays for somethings which Monzo could not do well for me. Hope to come back full Monzo in future though…
Thanks for this.
I have an obvious bias, but that aside I’ve been using Monzo as my only current account since October and it’s been great
there is no harm keeping two (or more ) current accounts open for the things that Monzo don’t do at the moment, also as another method of payment if one isn’t accepted - Visa v. Mastercard
cash deposits
easy cheque paying in to local bank
international transfers
large money transfers
to name a few
Yeah, I wish I hadn’t closed my old account for historical purposes
I would definitely keep at least two current accounts open at all times.
Having been affected by the TSB mess, I was recently locked out of one of my accounts for almost a month. Since I had a 2nd account, I found the whole experience more amusing than concerning, but had this been my only account, I’m sure I would’ve had a few sleepless nights.
Things happen. At every bank. (Though, hopefully, not that messed up again…)
Also, every now and again you hear about people’s accounts being frozen while the bank investigate suspicious activity. That can also drag on for weeks.
So, again, my advice: Keep at least two current accounts open at all times, and - especially if you don’t have a credit card - keep a few weeks’ worth of spending money in each one too. (If you can! I appreciate not everyone has that much liquidity all year round.)
I never thought about that. Wise. Having been with Barclays since I was just a boy, I’ve definitely got a lot of history with them.
I’ve been using Monzo as my only account since August last year, no regrets what so ever.
No Ive never had any problems with Monzo since 2015 , very happy with the service. When they had outages I wasn’t using my card it didn’t affect me at all - although others were affected. The outages have now become far less and seem to affect only a minority of the service i.e. transfers not the actual payments etc as @nanos says all banks have outages, however if you have no other means to pay a bill it becomes an issue.
I’m with Barclays however I have requested my salary to move across to Monzo last week. Once that is successful (I will find out next week) I’ll move my DDs one by one for Monzo to be my main account. I will still have my Barclays account as I like to have a backup account. The TSB fiasco just highlights my thoughts on having a backup account.
The company I work for many years now have contract with a few high street banks and some small fintech companies (can’t name them). Knowing how some of these companies works I’ve no regrets in moving across to Monzo.
So you never send money abroad or receive money from abroad?
Most people are well-served by TransferWise.
The only exception to this rule is for incoming transfers, where TransferWise only offers a Euro IBAN.
I am very much looking forward to the day where Monzo (or most finch banks in general, Starling included) offer us IBANs that allow for incoming transactions in any currency (obviously converted to Sterling at the end if it’s a Sterling account). Or at least USD (from non-US countries).
It’s not something I’ve ever had to do, personally.
We’re totally aware that this is something people want though, so we do plan on introducing this functionality as soon as we can.