Following from this thread, we’d love to get a better understanding of what types of “premium” features would provide value for you.
If you currently have a packaged account or it’s something you would be interested in, we’d love to have a chat over the phone or a Google Hangout.
You can book in for a chat with @lubahere or with me here (coming soon). Sessions last 45 minutes and we’ll give you £30 for your time – please pop your phone number in the description or we’ll assume you want to use the Hangout link.
The yardstick for me is Nationwide FlexPlus. I’ve searched and searched, both packaged bank accounts and individual insurance products. You just can’t get better value than £13/month for worldwide family travel insurance, family mobile phone insurance, breakdown cover and interest free £250 overdraft.
If you’re gonna package insurance in, it has to be decent. I don’t wanna be without my mobile for weeks on end - especially as it’s the only way to access my bank account.
Same as @danmullen.
I paid their monthly fee for the last 3 years and although I never used it yet, it does bring me some peace of mind in case something goes wrong.
I would imagine that for a large number of customers, not having a packaged account is a big user pain point.
I hoped the marketplace would fix this but it’s nowhere to be seen.
I’d use a packaged account if it were to let me pick and choose some of the features. A “buffet selection” of various features to choose from, with the price depending on how many features you pick would work well for me.
I’ve booked a slot in @luba 's calendar, hopefully I can be of help!
I thought the business model was to offer a basic account with no tiers that appeals to a billion people and then offer all the best services via a seemless marketplace?
Premium is a slippery slope. First some decent insurance cover and better limits, then somewhere down the line it becomes a conglomeration of garbage services that most people don’t use along with a diamond encrusted card at an inflated price, mis-sold to the naive or unsuspecting.
Not saying that’s what will happen, just that this is what actually happened (to the legacy banks Monzo are supposed to be radically different from).
I think that it’s great Monzo are reaching out to their users to see what that looks like though.
For me, there are some benefits I receive with my packaged account that mean going #FullMonzo and closing it down just isn’t an attractive proposition, even though I’m now transferring my salary to Monzo monthly and using it as my go-to spending account.
A packaged proposition may no doubt be desirable to some users. What exactly that looks like and how many, you can’t begin to gauge without at least opening up some conversation about it.
That said, I don’t utilise all the benefits of my current packaged account. I particularly like the ‘pick-and-mix’ approach mentioned above. Perhaps a ‘marketplace’ can achieve this.
I second the “buffet selection” of features. It’s impossible to make everybody happy but having several features out of which you can pick x is a great way of allowing people to make the decision what they want rather than being given what you offer and decide whether it’s worth the premium price
I also tried to book a slot but they all look taken - either way happy to speak.
For me, a premium account would mean some of these things - and like someone else said above - a “buffet” style approach would be very compelling.
Competitive selection of insurance packages - I already have various bits of insurance that cover a lot of things - annual worldwide travel, home contents (which covers more gadgets), and other bits. I don’t necessarily want or need them all - so being able to pick and choose would be great. If you could do a Mobile Phone cover that was more effective (e.g. faster replacement, £0 excess) and the account didn’t cost the same as my home contents / month - I’d be interested.
Metal Card - I would pay a one off fee for that - even if it brought no additional benefit. Hot Coral obviously.
Extra Perks in terms of discounts - again in a modular style - I like that N26 have partnered with WeWork for occaisonal free entry to their locations. I imagine as a modern bank with a younger, more tech savvy user base - these type of partnerships could be a good way add value (or other services that your user base use - discount partnering with Train Companies, TFL, etc?)
Better Budgeting tools. If I could budget in Monzo like I do YNAB I would pay for that absolutely.
Removal of certain restrictions / limits - ATM fees etc.
Things that bother me about Premium Savings accounts:
Paying for Interest and Cashback Deals - Generally I find the value never matches the cost quite well enough.
Bad Insurances Packages.
Contract Terms for certain elements - a 12 month contract on a bank account makes me sad.
That’s about the things I can think of for now. My final thought would be making sure Monzo don’t de-value their existing offering by creating a Premium account. If you stop developing genuinely useful features or hiding them behind a paywall then I would be sad. Monzo “Just Works” for me.
If there were features that fall under the “Just Works” banner behind a paywall I’d be looking to move banks. So please don’t devalue your core proposition to add premium accounts.
Absolutely none. (There had to be one to say it and it looks like it’s me.)
My bigger concern is that I find this sort of tiered offering quite off-putting since it introduces a perception that ‘free’ customers are less valuable to the bank than those who are prepared to pay.
If you have a fee for the account use it like a yearly loan too like a cashbuilder account to help people improve their credit rating, used this with the wife, the account cost £5.95 a month to use but if you did the Cashbuilder feature it got reported to CRA’s.
Other than that personally we had a RBS rewards account that gave I think 1% or 2% for bills that would be it.
Things like mobile phone insurance are covered in Home Contents (if you can’t fix it urself), Holiday insurance is fine but then if you have a disabled child you still need to pay on top of that and in some cases thats more than the holiday itself, and breakdown cover again covered if you have a mobility car, the latter 2 are my life
My bigger concern is that I find this sort of tiered offering quite off-putting since it introduces a perception that ‘free’ customers are less valuable to the bank than those who are prepared to pay.
Agree - Don’t mind certain offerings that add value to some extent - but if it turns into a “paywall” for the features that don’t come with a cost I’d be off.
I’d like to see what a truly ‘disruptive’ approach to existing Premiumisation would be, Monzo Style. I would much rather just have a bank account that bloody well works as well as Monzo does (even at the sacrifice of interest or cashback) vs All Those Premium Things.
(Aside from a Metal Card. I would really like a Hot Coral in Aluminium)
Metal Card/Aluminium
Increased withdrawal’s abroad
Mobile phone insurance (not linked to travel insurance like most)
Cashback rewards paid annually like AMEX
It just plays well into my weird set of fintech hoarding I think.
Ooh starling have a Vertical card -> requests a new one
Ooh N26 have a transparent card -> signs up and never uses it
N26 do a metal card -> look at the pricing and almost convince myself it’s justified.
There’s not much more to it that the look of it really. I imagine a hot coral metal would be pretty nice.
But otherwise - beyond “I just want one” - I don’t have very many good reasons for it.
I’ll be taking a late lunch on Thursday 
I’ll make sure I bring plenty of snacks 
