Viola Black Discussion

Financial Chat Fintech Chat
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Has anyone used the card yet?

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Is anyone daft enough to order oneā€¦ when one of the charges is 30p for Declining a POS or ATM transactionā€¦

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As far as I know @Rat_au_van is actually genuinely intrigued by how terrible can it actually be

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Iā€™m also intrigued but wouldnā€™t dream of applying out of principle at those fees

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Has anyone from Viola been in contact to join up here yet or are they still being peepers?

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Move over Revolut should be their motto.

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Move Over Dick Turpin

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Ok. Thatā€™s significantly better.

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@Ben_L you need to keep an eye out for the bikes when you are in Cardiff next month. Take some Monzo stickers :wink:

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Definitely feels like a compliment being plastered over another companies adverts, Monzo are slowly becoming the Apple of the banking world :blush:

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Have my recently purchased Monzo shares notionally gone down 9% in value? :wink:

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Iā€™d take (and promptly sell shares) in a Monzo trillion dollar valuation.

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I had my first Viola advert onlineā€¦ I feel concerned
EDIT: I missed the opportunity to say Violated :joy:

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If your Monzo shares were worth what apple shares still are then I wouldnā€™t be too worried :wink:

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There app had 2 reviews when I searched it. I decided to give them a helping handā€¦

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Does anyone know if the app is bespoke or is it a customized cookie cutter kinda deal?

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Meme over Monzo.

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I think we need to be careful that as a community, weā€™re not too harsh here. If we try too hard to attack Viola Black, when we have a valid point to make, itā€™s much more likely to be dismissed.

I do agree with a lot of whatā€™s already been said here, but I thought itā€™d be fun to share my own thoughts on each of their blog postā€™s points.

  1. Do people want prepaid cards?
    I do see their point here. Especially for travel, for example, something simple can be handy. You might not want all of the bells and whistles of a bank like Monzo, and something like Viola Black could therefore be more appropriate.

  2. Are the fees fair?
    These would put me off, and they could be simpler. As a consumer I feel overwhelmed looking at them all. I also think it was the wrong decision to mention Monzoā€™s financial situation. Starting as a bank is hard and I donā€™t think thereā€™s value in looking at those numbers.

  3. Is Viola more secure?
    I donā€™t really understand their reply here. If Viola is trying to make everyday spending easier, youā€™d presumably want a significant amount of money available. Therefore, there wouldnā€™t be much money in your ā€œmain bank accountā€ to protect.

  4. The layer issue
    Iā€™m undecided here. It could absolutely be a mistake that theyā€™re trying to cover for. On the other hand, their explanation seems plausible, and I feel like Iā€™ve seen similar design before. Iā€™ll post an example if I find one.

  5. Compensation
    This was a very strange response. Iā€™m not sure, but my admittedly uneducated and potentially wrong understanding is that you could get more compensation than the FSCS offers if you have a problem with Viola. That would assume the bank is still running, though.

To conclude:

Viola have put together a very clever response here. If someone read that blog post, and not our discussion here, I think thereā€™s a high chance they would accept Violaā€™s points at face value.

Do I think Violaā€™s a scam?
No, just a prepaid card with high fees. There are likely cheaper options with similar functionality.

Would I use Viola?
Itā€™s definitely not for me.

What do I think of the campaign overall?
Impressive. I donā€™t think Viola will ever be a competitor to be worried about, though. I see them as appealing to a very small subset of the market.

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