What are we working on? The Monzo Weekly Diary

Thanks @Sam!

Hi, Iā€™m Will. Iā€™ve just joined the operations team, last week :wave:

Iā€™m currently working full time with Emma on customer support. Weā€™re the guys you speak to when you press that ā€œChatā€ button. :mailbox_with_no_mail: Itā€™s been full on, but amazing. Itā€™s great getting to know what our users really care about and what everyone else in the Mondo team does.

The plan longer term is for me to work closely with Mondoā€™s third party service providers and also look into new initiatives that need focused attention, whilst also helping out with operations challenges as they come up. :thumbsup: Iā€™m excited to see what this involves!

Tomorrow I nominate @emma_mondo :hugging:

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Thanks @willw!

Hi! Iā€™m Emma and Iā€™ve been with the Mondo team almost a month now. :wave:

As Will mentioned, I am heading up the Customer Support Operations at Mondo. My goal is to keep all of our awesome users happy by fixing any issues that come up or passing any feature suggestions on to the product team. :blush:

In the short term, I am working on trying to get back to all the chats as soon as possible and process all the manual KYC checks that come in through email/chat! Iā€™m also reviewing customer service role applications so we can grow the team to be able to support the increasing number of users. Longer term, my goal is to work closely with the product team to create better customer service tech so we can resolve your problems super quickly. :+1:

Hopefully speak to many of you through the app at some point!

Tomorrow I nominate @bailey! The newest member of the Mondo team!

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ā€¦ thanks @emma_mondo! Youā€™re doing such a great job keeping on top of all those support queries :trophy:

Alright then - Iā€™m Bailey (like the drinkšŸ¹) and today Iā€™m on day 4 heading up marketing at Mondo.

Iā€™m not always a fan of the word ā€˜marketingā€™- the thing to remember is that itā€™s a bit of an umbrella term for a load of activity that, in the end, leads to increased user adoption, always a good thing :chart_with_upwards_trend:

So for the moment (itā€™s only day 4!) Iā€™m looking at how the customer journey works, where people are finding out about Mondo, and finding out the stories and messages that most often inspire sign ups. Today we looked at the website, for example.

:computer: Iā€™d love to hear what everyone thinks about the Mondo website - what do you think we should improve? What do you like/hate about it? https://getmondo.co.uk/ Tell me!!

On an unrelated note I thought Iā€™d share with you where weā€™re working from this week (itā€™s a bit of building site at our new address!) :tools:

Right-o, tomorrow I'm nominating my fellow new joiner @zancler to talk about his beautiful design work... enjoy!

PS - if you tweet us @getmondo, thatā€™s me now :blush:

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Hey Natasha, any future plans to emboss the cards with the card holderā€™s name, or will Mondo be sticking to the 9-digit codes? Personally, I prefer having my name on the card, though I realise this requires cards printed ā€˜to orderā€™ as accounts get opened, and youā€™d need to send off a data feed to your card producer, etc.

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Hi Dan,

It is definitely something we are thinking about, but havenā€™t decided on yet :thinking:. Opinions differ within the team about whether it is worth doing, but if we did do it, there are probably some ways we could manage it without too much involvement from our card manufacturer :credit_card:. It is also worth mentioning that if we do decide to go for it, it is very unlikely to happen pre-banking licence.

I am interested in how many people would want this, so thanks for sharing your interest! :tada:

Thanks,
Natasha

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@natasha, I think a name on the card would be great (for issues discussed here), but one of the best things about the registration process with Mondo :mondo: was how quickly the card :credit_card: was dispatched and received!

Iā€™m not sure how easy it would be to balance this, but itā€™s definitely something I would like to see in the future!

I like not having my name on the card myself. I wish it was an option for all my cards.

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@anon4562461 would you mind sharing why that is? I think the argument for wanting a name on your card is pretty clear, but would love to hear some of the opposing arguments!

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I canā€™t see any huge benefits to it and itā€™s not valid as a form of identification. I much prefer the ability to have a replacement card with me next day than 4 days later because it needed my name on it.
Your signature is on the back so you can differentiate between cards that way.

Historically cards have had names on them, but looking forward I donā€™t see a need for the card itself. Apple Pay, Curve, and Google Wallet, amongst others, are removing the need for a piece of plastic in your wallet. When I use Apple Pay my name doesnā€™t appear on screen.

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I have to agree with @anon4562461.

A random identifying icon or logo on the front of the card might be useful, but I think name is a bit redundant these days.

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Thank you @bailey :sunglasses:

Hello! Iā€™m Zander, brand new design boy here, working alongside @hugo and @Sam as Mondoā€™s design trifecta. Iā€™ll be focused on making the Mondo mobile experience as simple, intelligent, and beautiful as can be.

Today is day 5, and for 4.5 of those days Iā€™ve been sat with Hugo working on the next features for Mondo, including recurring payments and a big big upgrade to Search, which is what Iā€™m working on at this very moment (aside from writing this) ā€” Iā€™m looking forward to sharing with you all what weā€™ve been cooking up. Iā€™ve also been working through bits of the Android app and will progress with that further in the near future.

Youā€™ll definitely be hearing from me soon as thereā€™ll be lots for you all to take a look at and provide feedback and insights on. Til next time! :peace:

PS. I nominate @jonas, CTO

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Having a name is not a show stopper to have a new card quicker.
I use this bank where every branch can emboss the name on the card on the spot.

In fact they brag about you can go into a branch, open an account and come out with your working card in minutes.

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Manpower darling. The costs of the machine and having enough people and time to crosschecking the names and embossing the cards then shipping it out are quite high. Seeing Mondo is still in Beta phase, itā€™s probably best for everyone to focus on the actual ā€˜productā€™ than the more ā€˜vanityā€™ side of things.

The process can surely be automated and that is very likely the way Mondo will have to go onde they become a bank and the cards are no longer pre-paid.
Then Mondo will need to have named accounts as per FCA rules, and that might require named cards.
So mondo will have to either emboss their own cards or outsource that to a third-party. Something like a new customer event, triggers a card embossing, shipping label and the merge process to ship it by mail, or submit a request to a third party that will do that for them.

The personalized handwriten envelope that we got now is a very nice touch, but that wont scale. Iā€™m sure Mondo will be able to keep the good design but it will have to be done in a more automated way.

Obviously that is a scale problem and Mondo is rightly betting on the product as it is probably on stage 1 of the Roger Bell curve.

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Hi Simon,
Thanks for the update. Really interesting as Iā€™m a consultant specialising in cloud computing and the connected world. Iā€™ve heard the established bank players making excuses for years now on why they canā€™t use cloud for banking. Itā€™s yesterdayā€™s thinking and itā€™s great to see you guys blazing a trail for the next generation of banking.
Effectively the problem is that no matter how ā€œdigitalā€ established banks try to be, they are so heavily invested in mainframe technology that they will struggle to move their banking systems to any other platform. Emerging challengers carry no baggage and can just take advantage of the benefits that cloud offers.
Would be interested to come along and talk to you about how you are leveraging technology to build a bank from scratch.
Keep up the great work!

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What I liked a few years ago at Drummonds (part of RBS) was being able to specify how I wanted my name to appear on my card

e.g. Mr John Doe, Mr A J Doe, John Doe, A J Doe, etc

Also there was an ability to have a second line of embossing

e.g. Account No 2, EUR Account, Savings Account, etc

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Also some banks as well as a name have the sort code and account number on a second line of embossing. I find that very handy when filling in a direct debit etc.

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I canā€™t see any benefit to me, to having my name on the card. In store itā€™s rare for staff to need to see the detail on the card and no one has ever commented / noticed about the lack of a name on my card. The only issue I can see is potential customer confusion when asked to enter the name on the card when paying online. We understand it doesnā€™t actually matter (although good practice is to just enter your name), however this could confuse future customers, so would need an education process.

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One place that might require names on the cards, would be in hotels. They might not accept your card and think that its some kind of ā€˜fraudā€™. Although personally i prefer not to have my name on my card (privacy, if i loose my card), I can totally understand people who wish to have them.

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Actually I have had merchants question why my name isnā€™t on it, and Iā€™m still confused about what to do when asked to enter ā€œName on cardā€ online. At the minute Iā€™m just using whatā€™s on my old card, but this is not intuitive at all for new Mondo customers.