We're adding two new fees, which only affect a minority of customers

Monzo Chat News & Updates
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Hey folks :wave:

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, sorry for the silence! I’ve met some of you in person and chatted with many more of you here about the beginning of business accounts, seeing your credit score in Monzo and Monzo Loans. I’m now working on some projects which directly affect the Monzo current account.

We’ve been working on something for the last six months which I really want to share with you now.

We’ve been working through a pretty difficult problem – a small number of people make up a huge proportion of our costs for taking out cash in the European Economic Area (the EEA, which includes the UK) and getting replacement Monzo cards. To be a sustainable business and ultimately to continue to grow Monzo and support you, we have to manage those costs.

We went through lots of different iterations (which I can’t share in detail I’m afraid folks!), and we’ve finally landed on a solution we think is fair, and which will affect the least amount of people (especially those who rely on Monzo the most), whilst still solving the problem. We really hope you think it’s a reasonable and transparent way of covering these costs too.

Here’s the detail. Me and the team will be around on the forum all day to answer any questions you might have about this! :+1:

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Getting a Department for Work and Pensions or Department for Communities’ payment (like Universal Credit or a state pension) into a Monzo account every 35 days

What about HMRC for those of us still on tax credits that haven’t been moved to universal credit yet?

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I think these are very good moves to tackle abuse and weed out accounts which are making losses for you.

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Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Will reinforce the fact that Monzo is a bank account and not a spending account.

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Great question! We don’t pick these up automatically but we’re definitely aware of these payments – so if you get in touch with customer support in the app, they’ll be able to give you a hand :+1:

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Curious to know how many people are withdrawing more than £250 cash but paying in less than £500?

I’m not totally sure about the optics of charging for UK cash withdrawals but I can’t get too excited about it.

Nor am I particularly bothered about paying for replacement cards.

:man_shrugging:

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It’ll be interesting to see how this develops when “stolen” cards go up 40838934%

But I think it’s fair really, and if you are using Monzo in a semi-serious manner, the cash point charges won’t even affect you.

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Hopefully the serial abusers who keep reporting their cards as ‘stolen’ will find their account getting shut down for not looking after the security of their account.

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I think all looks reasonable enough.

@jackcully has any thought went into how much this will affect the currently already quite long waits for the in app chat?

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Charging for domestic cash withdrawals and for replacement cards makes it feel like a prepaid card. But fair for those treat their account as such. Let’s see what other fees will start getting phased in :eyes:

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So does this mean that Monzo are now the only UK bank that not only charges consumers to pay in money but also to withdraw it?

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Use Monzo as your main account and you won’t get charged for either of those :slight_smile:

They’re very fair and reasonable changes.

Basically, if you use Monzo as your main bank you get everything you expect. Otherwise you have two options:

  • Contribute to the costs.
  • Use your other account as that is clearly your main account.

Monzo absolutely shouldn’t be footing the bill for the above. They can then utilise that money in other areas, like support.

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I bet @jackcully wasn’t expecting almost uniform praise when he posted this :laughing:

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Ssshhhhh don’t speak too soon, you’ll jinx it :zipper_mouth_face:

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I didn’t say it wasn’t fair…

Monzo telling people to use accounts with other banks however is nonsense.

I wonder if these fees apply to the 16-17 accounts?

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One other thing i dont think is covered @jackcully at what point does this get reassessed?

So say for example a person doesnt pay in £500 to their account in one month but has dd’s.
But they pay in £500 in month two.

Could they be reclassified or how does that work?

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The usuals haven’t seen it yet.

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I think it is perfectly reasonable.

I have other accounts, however, Monzo is my main account. Money in, DDs, etc.

No drama to use another card if the need arises.

There are many that still use Monzo the same as the Prepaid card days of 2017, as mentioned before. Monzo is no longer that service provider.

If people want to use it as a prepaid card style service, then prepaid service style fees will obviously appear.

How many prepaid card accounts are available for no service fee??

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From reading the linked article, 99% of people request one or no replacement cards a year but now everyone will be billed for a replacement card.

Would a fairer option be to have your first card replaced for free and then pay for any additional cards after that?

On a different note, I’ve been waiting to talk to someone on the online chat for nearly an hour and a half, guess this announcement is why :rofl:

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Here’s a criticism. There’s a typo.

Similarly, if you need a new card because it’s been stolen, frauded or if it’s expired, we’ll always replace that for free in the UK.

Frauded isn’t a word. Defrauded is.

As someone on another thread mentioned, Monzo appear to be suffering because they launched as a prepaid card, and a lot of customers (including me) have always used Monzo in that way. It seems to me that these fees vindicate that sentiment somewhat.

That’s not a bad thing, by the way, but it does make Monzo look less like a bank in my eyes.

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