I see 
I agree to an extent.
Locked pots as they were worked perfectly for me - I’m terrible for just dipping into savings, so having to message COps was enough of a deterrent for me to unlock it as I don’t want to use up their time unecessarily.
Problem with locking them indefinitely is that it’s my money, and life happens. I’m not in a position at the moment to have a buffer large enough to cover my boiler breaking so if that were to happen I’d need to access some pots rather than shove it on a credit card.
I don’t know what the complromise is here… I think a “next working day” delay like with the savings pots would be a good idea. That or limit the number of times you can unlock a pots before locking is an option taken away from you. For example, if you unlock pots via COps 5 times, then you can’t lock any pots for the next 6 months.
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Maybe the answer is to highlight on your summary or something that you “broke the lock” not visible to anyone, just a personal notification to you to say “you’re doing this a lot, just to let you know”
I needed access (didn’t NEED, but it came in handy) to my locked funds, i borrowed from a friend. Once this change came into play i unlocked the pot and paid my friend back a month earlier than promised. Stats will now show that the new way of working was best for me, but the only reason i used the unlock feature is because it was there.
If you tell people they can lock a pot but they can simply contact COps to unlock it, people will use that feature.
Apparently 20% of locked pots were unlocked by COps, i find it hard to believe that 20% of those were a genuine need.
Put the disclaimer on the pot at the time of creation that it is the users responsibility to ensure they don’t lock too much away. Then people will think more carefully about locking it in the first place
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What if i just dont update the app? still be locked up and unable to close? That would be good
I think you still then have the difficulty of a Bank refusing to give its customer their own money.
I definitely think there is no more friction now and that for a ‘locked’ pot to work that is what you need.
And also agree that if you hadn’t told anyone about being able to unlock it that 20% who called COps would be even lower.
Its just a really hard balance.
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- I really think a user set delay for unlocking a pot early (with a maximum of 24 hours delay) would be a solution to problems like this:
- As long as Monzo make it clear when you’re locking the pot that you won’t be able to access the money before the delay, I see no problem. It’s just the same as Monzo declining Direct Debits because someone has all their money in (regular) pots.
NB: a maximum delay of 12 hours might be better than 24 hours. A 12 hour early unlock delay should be enough to prevent impulse purchases while giving people more wiggle room for emergency situations or accidentally locking the pot for the wrong date.
Personally as I have said above it needs variables
£0 in pot can unlock no need to delete
£X in pot 24hr delay
I unlocked a pot and recreated it and had to setup all the scheduled payments again, the pot did have £0 in it, and the reason I needed to delete it was I edited the unlock date after the date of the withdrawal which would have failed to pay X DD
Now as I have the update via test flight something else also dawned on me, the end user needs self control with the updated friction.
Yeah, when is this update coming Monzo?! This is the feature I need.
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This is where I can see this proposed solution coming undone.
With the 24hr delay I still think people will contact Monzo and ask them to unlock it earlier. Monzo would have to take a hard stance in refusing to unlock pots early and by doing this they’re going to piss a lot of people off - 20% to be precise.
They’re going to be annoyed for a few reasons:
- They know pots can be unlocked early by Monzo so it would just be a lie
- If they removed the ability to unlock early then this would equally be as bad.
- They’re not making “money work for everyone” by preventing people from accessing it.
The difference with Investment pots is that a 3rd party needs 24hrs to process it so Monzo aren’t to blame. Again, with other savings accounts you sign a legal contract and the terms are made very clear.
I’m not defending anyone here, just playing devils advocate because I can see that its a tricky one! 
I think they have to do the gambling lock and state that the countdown cannot be overwritten, when they lock pots unless there is £0 in it 
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I do think Monzo would need to take a hard stance, but, if it’s clearly explained that if pots are unlocked early there’s a delay in receiving the funds and then people agree to those terms when they lock the pot by clicking “accept”, it’s no different to agreeing terms with Monzo about the Investec pot.
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If people are worried that 24 hours is too much of a delay (I actually now think 12 hours would be a better maximum), they can set the delay to a smaller amount (eg: one hour or even “unlock instantly”) when they first lock the pot.
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Monzo would have to remove the functionality so that COps would not be able to unlock the pots early.
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I’m struggling to see how removing the ability to unlock locked pots early without a delay is “equally as bad” as deceiving a customer by a COp saying they can’t unlock it when they can.
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The logic of this argument could also be applied to the Gambling Block - Monzo isn’t making money work for people who want to gamble in the next 48 hours, but can’t because they previously enabled a gambling block (and agreed to the terms of the delayed unlock when they did).
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In fact, I think having an implementation of Locked Pots with a delayed early unlock actually helps to make money work for more people than letting them get instant early access to a ‘locked’ pot.
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Having an early unlock delay would help loads of people who struggle with impulse spending and sticking to a budget. If people want quick access to their money, either don’t lock pots or set the early unlock delay to something small (eg: one hour).
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I’m a bit disappointed that Monzo changed this so quickly. I don’t know if it’s been mentioned in the thread but surely the fact that this has just been added will skew the data of people unlocking their pots? Those that lock them just to see what happens or make mistakes because it’s a new function. You’ll have people that are genuinely just trying to budget and save (which is the purpose of Monzo) for the first time so haven’t formed the habit yet that this sort of friction will bring.
I think it was too soon to make a decision on what Monzo thinks it’s customers want.
I withdrew the money from my locked pot and transferred it out of Monzo. Too much of a temptation seeing it there knowing I could access it anytime
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I’ve made a change to putting all the money I want locked into my Investec Savings Pot, as that has the built in 24 hour delay for withdrawal.
Not ideal as it lumps everything together, but gives me the friction that I need.
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And not ideal if a pot goal is less than £1000.
My locked pots are for annual spends - car insurance, TV licence, Christmas presents etc etc. All quite small amounts, but ones that I can easily put aside monthly installments towards.
That’s why I’ve had to (unfortunately) lump it in with other savings etc to make up the money. But the added friction is definitely helpful.
If you don’t mind me asking, where have you put it to avoid temptation?
We’ve been looking at doing something like this with our joint savings…
Just the isa I have with Barclays. Get very little interest but I need WiFi for the app to work so can’t transfer to to my main Barclays account when I’m out.
Best solution for me but annoyingly i’ll have to do that every Monday when IFTTT put money into my pot from the weekly savings challenge
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I locked myself out of First Direct’s online banking. I had changed iPhone last year and forgot to transfer the device key and strangely I can’t be bothered to ring their award winning service to get my iPhone reactivated. Therefore I can transfer in but as I deleted most of the payees I can’t get it out without either ringing up, using my card or sending it to my ex.
I think I will cut up my card and send my money that way. Like Monzo, I would have to bug their customer services to get access. That little bit of friction helps.
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