What features in a Monzo app would you be willing to pay for?

That.

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I don’t like the idea of paying for my bank, but then I don’t want Monzo to not exist because they’re not making money and I’ve seen the shit show that if banking in US and Europe. I also remember being charged for every cash machine transaction even at your own bank.

Things I would consider paying a token amount for…

  • Details of what I bought in my statement, especially solid integration with Amazon, ebay etc. I add this detail by hand right now
  • Anything which helps people do self assessment tax. Again, I do it by hand, it there was a good way to get it out with one click that would be great.
    *Paying in cheques by photo. Charge me a quid to do it rather than posting it in for free
    *Bringing other finance data in. For example Halifax shows me my pension with another provider (no idea how) and if I could get everything into one place that would be worth a small amount especially if it helpee by track my total worth etc.
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If Monzo pay-walled off services like budgeting or virtual cards then I would be inclined to leave. Monzo should be making money from the banking side, not going the way of Revolut which has features I like walled off. I really liked Revolut (defended them a lot here) but they became less and less relevant to me when they did this.

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Theoretically I’d pay for more advanced budgeting features which take that side of Monzo’s offering towards products like YNAB.

It means i don’t need to worry about feeds, or uploads, my ‘budgeting app’ is right there next to the money I need to budget with.

Flip this view - how much of Microsoft Excel do you use (if you use it). Do you use all the features? Or do you have a core set that are all you need and the others never really get looked at.

Now, if Microsoft were to offer a free/lite version of Excel, would you use it? Leaving the people who need massive pivot tables, VBA add-ons and the like, to pay for it (which they do at the moment as Excel isn’t a free app).

In my head that’s the split. Getting the split of features RIGHT, is much harder of course. It’s also much harder to build an app UX with on/off features.

Outside of that, I can’t think of anything (bar insurance add-ons et al) and given the core app still needs some work, I’m wary of this being a route they go down.

This 100%.

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:point_up:

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Can’t get beind this sentiment though the items are not mutually exclusive; Monzo have stated that their goal is to increase revenue per customer and that seems sensible.

Personally I’m glad that they’re aiming to deliver extra services rather than shoving lending down my throat on every YouTube video like Starling.

I did vote in Poll saying that “extra features” I was would be willing to pay for. The only way I would be willing to pay for them is if they went down the Trello model. Of having a fully functioning free version and the paid version helps with further automation. But if you removed the premium it would still be fully functioning(The reason I pay for extra is I need it((I’m doing a PhD and I automated my literature review).
In terms of what I would pay for extra I personally think that Monzo needs to go a little off piste and look at partnering with smaller startups(Wrisk) but also look at the services that most their customer base use and see if they can negotiate good deals(Not everyone is a student!). By this I mean Spotify,Audible et al.,

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These are great feature requests, but it is incredibly naive of Monzo to think that charging for these services are the right way to go.

Monzo is a bank. It makes money off the money we put into our accounts and for charging interest/fees on loans and overdrafts.

To make more money Monzo needs to hold more people’s money which in turn means they need to get more people to go #FullMonzo.

Providing the features you’ve suggested would be an incredibly compelling reason for people to move banks and use Monzo as their primary account.

It’s simple business practices that they don’t seem to understand

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A minor counterpoint. I think they understand that simple business practice very well given they are on a steady trend of attracting new customers month on month so perhaps they are looking beyond this at what ELSE they can do, rather than rely on that until it starts to slow and stall (which it will).

There are multiple teams in Monzo, so I don’t think it’s a case of shifting away from the core business, that will still be enhanced and grow and provide the basic economic platform that allows Monzo to then ADD to that.

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I would counter that by saying that they understand marketing, and are good at it. That is not the same as being good at business, it is just a small subset of it.

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And I would counter that to say that marketing IS business, especially for a startup.

OK, your turn! :smiley:

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:+1:
It depends how you define startup. I would say they are not, as they have a value of £2 billion and hundreds of employees, thus fulfilling two rules of the 50-100-500 rule. But there is no solid definition of what a startup is.

But they are still good at marketing.

A lot of banks now have virtual cards. We use them in work for one time payments with HSBC, it gets around the need for 2FA with PSD2/3DS2 which can be a real pain for the holders of the cards when they’re being used numerous times a day.

My argument is not that they don’t know how to get New customers, it is that they don’t know how to get people to become #FullMonzo.

Monzo made it incredibly easy to open a bank account… but have not been as successful at getting people to use them as their Main account.

By offering compelling free services and integrations they will get more people depositing more money in their accounts.

This is what makes significantly more profit for Monzo than premium accounts or pay walled services. If you doubt that then look at every other bank in the world and tell me how many paywalled services they have versus the amount of profit they make.

That is the simple business practice they need to get better at.

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But (devils advocate!) Monzo don’t want to be every other bank in the world… :wink:

Bills from Pots is what has made me make the switch.

I think switching bank accounts is not something people do often if at all. I would consider myself to be somewhat smart with money but I’ve never switched. I’ve never felt the need. Maybe because I don’t have large savings or want the add ons so it’s not important to me.

Compare banking to switching energy suppliers. A little over 20% of people switched supplier in 2018. This something that is heavily advertised and could save you hundreds per year. Monzo isn’t going to save me big sums.

Switching from Natwest to Monzo is a big improvement for me but I still had concerns about DDs moving ever successfully etc. Many people just won’t be bothered and I’d say the ones that do, aren’t going to pay up for extra in-app features. With so many challengers in a small space, if you charge for it, the chances are that someone else won’t.

I know a few people with Monzo and none of them use it as their main account. People seem happy to sign up, it’s easy and the design is good, it’s getting money from them. I’d be far more likely to pay for extras like insurances etc than to make the app better.

I wouldn’t pay for any software features.
I’d be willing to pay for banking services and fee’s associated with them.
I would be willing to have a premium account if it provided benefits unrelated to budgeting or software, potentially travel savings or virtual card. (Virtual card I think is more than a software offer as it may have a cost to provide or facilitate).

I’ve just moved my main banking to monzo including salary deposit and joint account. I’m onboard with it and I want monzo to be profitable but splitting the app and banking offering into different tiers doesn’t sit right with me.

Have you seen this? Email Receipts in Monzo
It allows you to forward emails from amazon and associate the receipts with monzo transactions.

I think paying in cheques by photo shouldn’t be a chargeable service, monzo are already saving by not having to have high street banks where you could do this with another competitor. I wouldn’t be very happy moving from Barclays where I can deposit in branch to having to pay £1 to take a photograph.

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Touché … can’t really argue with that!!!

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