Virtual 'Savings' Accounts

i think the main thing about having virtual pots you can assign a monetary amount too is the differentiation from a target… the money assigned to it has to be done AHEAD of time and that money removed and ring fenced from the available balance on the account… i.e

Wages come in at £2000
Bills cos £1100
Pot called bills is automatically assigned £1100 on payday and the remaining balance on the card is shown as £900

If the bills are higher that month at £1200 then it automatically transfers the extra £100 from the main pot

this could then be extended to say… at the end of the month if the bills were lower and we only spent £1010 then the remaining £90 could be transferred to another ‘pot’ called savings etc?

This way is a single account ( or multiple accounts behind the scenes ) where the available balance on the card is AFTER everything else is assigned to the pots and separated into their own discreet balance?

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yes… yeS… yES… YES!

Virtual saving accounts and cards would be bloody brilliant!

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That will be possible, or at least something along those lines. I’m not sure of what specifics the Monzo team have thought up on it though.

As people like to save for different things, non essentials and large expenses scheduled for months or years later, they are almost always considered secondary to bill payments.

You are correct about ring fencing essential money for the forecasted bills of a given period. Going by @hugo’s post mentioned above, I would interpret that your pot for bills will be taken care of first in conjunction with the targets feature.

With regards to irregular amounts or intervals of payments, I can’t see any easy way to forecast them accurately. The bill sender should still provide notice of the amount and a rough guide to when it’ll be debited and you’ll need to adjust Monzo’s targets accordingly.

Thanks @alexs hadn’t seen that video before! Really interesting watch.

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How about creating something that gives the possibility to link your savings account to peer2peer lending platforms like Zopa or similar. This could also be a great add-on for Monzo’s community. I would value very much the ability to get higher rates on my savings, even if done by bearing a little more risk.

It looks like this is exactly where Monzo is heading :slight_smile: there’s been quote a lot of discussion about this here -

it would be great to hear your thoughts on what’s been said there!

Thanks Alex!!! I have only Joined Monzo today so I was not aware of this. Ill have a read now!

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Virtual Savings Accounts is a fantastic idea - what they are essentially is Budget Categories.

Does anyone here use any Budgeting Software?

Virtual savings or ‘pots’ would be a fantastic way of saving and budgeting for specific things. I can imagine myself setting up one for ‘New Car Fund’ and ‘House Deposit so far’ etc.

Have you seen the new Targets feature? :slight_smile:

(this is coming to Android :soon: as Monzo’s aiming for both apps to have all of the same features)

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Like this idea had something similar a few years ago with the one account from RBS but that was a mortgage with no app.

Love this new feature.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this.

is the behaviour like a “rolling budget”? Where anything that you’ve not spent from a category rolls over into the next month for that category? Or is it just monthly targets that reset at the beginning of each month?

It’s the latter, the Targets are independent of the previous month’s so you can adjust them for Christmas for example, to take your plans to buy presents (if you’re feeling generous) into account :santa:

Revolut now does them

Yeah my Thai bank does this… Allows the creation of multiple virtual visa numbers for online spending… that can be turned on or off (not as advanced as limiting or rules). Handy if your signing up for a one time item that you dont want rolled over into a subscription or for a intro offer you intend to cancel once it rises to full price.

I think you may be confusing the ‘cost per customer acquisition and set up’ to cost per card…

I deal with prepaid visa cards in my biz and I can get unlimited cards at 6.50 each… I can get custom branded ones in my own company colors for IIRC 8 per card.

Those costs include embosing not just printing on cards, and mailing to customers not just handing them out.

Those are mailed out prices and my monzo card isnt embossed…

Just saying… Card production is no where near 40 quid for me and I am getting them in the 10s and 100s… Not 10s of 1000s…

It’s since been admitted as a rumour, started by one of the alpha card holder investors :laughing:

I have in the past seen figures of £40 quoted for bank cards in UK and €45 for bank cards in France and Germany so those figures seemed consistent, they also based on quality bank cards (as we would have when the current account launched) rather than prepaid give aways