The main thing at the moment for me is the Rules for Pots because this will be a feature that I have not had in the past and at the moment I am currently moving any loose change (always round down to the nearest pound) at the end of the day to one of my pots, if I could automate this then I will be happy.
Also, locking the app with my fingerprint on Android would be a big plus!
I think I’d rather Monzo worked on refining some of their current ‘features’ before they jumped to any of the above.
I’d rather wait a while for rules for pots for example in favour of a nicer looking payment interface (with the ability to group bank accounts under one contact) or crowd-sourced direct debits, so my feed doesn’t look cluttered with capital letters and no logos!
I think it’s interesting to see how low down the list the Android Pulse Graph. It seems as though android users (myself included) are not particularly bothered by not having this feature.
Personally I am suprised to see International Payments so low down people’s priorities. Without it it is not a proper bank account but just an advanced prepay
I would have put international payments higher, but restricted votes to top 5 to try to make people prioritise, which meant it didn’t make the cut for me as I don’t use this as a work account (where I do get international payments), but instead pay to it from a corporate account based in the UK. I guess lots of people don’t need international payments in their personal banking, if they work in the UK and are paid by a UK company.
I’d personally love Business Banking but can understand why it’s a low priority for Monzo (and it’s clear from this poll it’s not high in demand). At the moment I’m using Tide for that.
One thing I am surprised by above is the position of Rules for Pots , I wouldn’t have thought it’d end up at the top.
I’m also really surprised that Bank Statements are high up there Why would you want a paper statement? For other banks? For a mortgage?
I’ve only made 3-4 international payments in the last 15 years (and I do travel a reasonable amount). I think it’s pretty niche for the vast majority of UK banking customers.
If you have ever lived or worked in EU (not likely to be a problem for future generations as Brexit pulls up the drawbridge) you may still have ongoing commitments. Personally I send SEPA payments 3 times a month (maybe 4 or 5 two months of the year). However I have not sent a SWIFT payment in decades
Statements (paper or digital) seem a pretty absurd way to try to verify transactions though as they are so easily forged, and not properly checked by banks. There’s just no way they can properly verify a printout or a pdf as being from the institution concerned.
Hopefully things like open banking will allow customers to just give temporary permission for mortgage providers to query their bank account history for the last few months (effectively what they do by requesting bank statements). This would also do away with those horrible forms detailing monthly spending.
Lenders rarely use them to verify transactions, they’re used as proof of address and proof of funds in the case of deposits, in the case of the latter, this is to satisfy your solicitors AML obligations.
In the case of the former, the address will match your credit report, if it doesn’t, it will be declined.
In the case of the latter, the copy will need to be certified by a solicitor, notary etc as being a true copy of an original.
As far as AML is concerned, solicitors or anyone handling AML just need to show that they’ve taken reasonable steps to ensure that the AML documents are accurate, they don’t dig too much, and they’re not required to.
The only time they’ll go deeper is if there are large (over £2k) payments into the account in the time period between 30 and 90 days that purchase funds are required to have been ‘rested’ in the account.
In which case, they’ll require more certified statements showing where the money has come from, a partner or parent for example.
A paper statement is pretty easy to fake nowadays and there is no way to know if it is original, people just take it on trust, it would be better to have a verified connection to a bank.
Lenders also make you fill in a spending breakdown, which again would be better done as a verified connection to the bank, with spending classified by recipient. That would be far more reliable than self certified income.
I just think that if it were that much of an issue for lenders, they’d have made changes by now, to either requirements or processes.
In the short term however, being able to generate a PDF statement, for whatever reason the individual would like them, is easier and to achieve for any institution than building the open banking architecture that you’re proposing.
Your idea is great, but I think the barriers are a) actually creating the software and b) having the entire banking and mortgage industry take it up quickly.
I also would like to suggest descriptions on payments to be able to either be copied or to be automatically added.
So if you pay the same payee twice, your reference is the same. You then would have the choice to leave it or change it.
I am glad custom categories has made the top 5. It makes sense, as the tracking and spending management is such a huge part of the pull to Monzo, and personalising it seems vital to make it meaningful for each person.
Same with rules for pots- it’s all about being able to customise the spending management functionality. Where as some of the more generic ‘bank-y’ features seem to be a bit lower down the list.
I think it’s more that the pulse graph became kind of like a symbol of how far behind Android is.
The main feature I want is overdrafts. I feel with a small overdraft I could basically stop worrying about anything going wrong (specifically direct debits on payday). Everything else I can wait for.
Second is remembering previous payment references.
Third is in-app reporting of incorrect logos and merchant information.
When you pay someone you have to re-fill in the reference every time. If you’re paying a credit card by bank transfer for example, you have to enter your full card number as a reference every time.
There should be a ‘save reference’ tick box or something on the payment screen.
, I wouldn’t have thought it’d end up at the top.