I like a fair few of your suggestions here!
I will say though that security should never be less on a free account vs paid account.
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As monzo are liable for fraudulent transactions I’m not entirely sure why this would be a good idea
Plus would need to cost a hell of a lot for that list not to lose them a lot of money
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I think that is the key point here
Charging to change a value in a database for the maximum number of something that costs nothing extra, like N26 does with their equivalent of pots seems off, but is maybe easier to explain (or criticise!)
Charging for, or taking a cut on, something that has a per term or per instance cost does seem fine, but is a harder sell
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No idea where you are trying to go with that. But I use the same software as they do. They were warned (by the software) before they sent the survey that it was biased. The same software has example questions to show how to make it more fair. But they didn’t - they forced people to choose options which did not necessarily apply. THAT gives confirmation bias.
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Sounds like a redundant job role when you have this forum for them to voice suggestions🤔. For the record, I have praised some decisions and features.
I find it very, very, hard to believe that both iterations of Plus got past the scouts. If they did, then they have failed Monzo (twice) and caused wastage of thousands of man hours and hundreds (?) of thousands of investors money. All while there are still very basic problems which are preventing people going Full Monzo which is what they need to turn a profit.
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They’re a bank differentiated by software. Not a software company differentiated by being a bank.
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Monzo absolutely is doing this, the concern is if they start charging for really basic software features like this where will they stop? (To my understanding) these features are not particularly complex for Monzo to build, yet they are massive positives of having a Monzo account.
Imagine a scenario where Monzo came up with a YNAB equivalent that linked into your Monzo account. Imagine if they made that free and gave it to everyone as a standard part of their current account. That would be a pretty compelling reason to use Monzo as your main account - which means more profit for Monzo.
Then imagine another scenario where they decided to only offer the YNAB style feature to Plus members (I refuse to say Plustomers) as a paid service. You’re immediately reducing the number of people that would pay for that service and it therefore reduces the profit to Monzo. If you’re a NatWest or Nationwide customer and already pay for YNAB then what incentive is there to move to Monzo if you’re still going to have to pay for an equivalent feature?
I don’t have the answer, but the question is what gives Monzo more profit?
- Gaining new customers and turning them Full Monzo while providing the service for free; or
- Attract no/very few additional customers (based on this feature alone), but charge your existing customers a premium for a service they can get elsewhere?
I believe the first option is far more attractive to customers and would be more profitable to Monzo.
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This is exactly what the community are terrified of. Once you start charging for these simple features when do you stop?!
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Personally I feel this like indicates a two tier banking system benefitting those who can afford it more than those that can’t.
That is something I am not comfortable with.
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I see what you mean, but I think we may be agreeing in a roundabout way - a premium fee should change the ease with which you do something, not whether you can do it or not at all. An optional fee for convenience, like next day delivery on Amazon Prime instead of free 3-day delivery, or a 24/7 helpline for HSBC Premier customers, rather than an office-hours one.
I’ve just completed an account switch to Monzo. The thought of having to pay for application features makes me think of switching straight back out. Pay for bank products & services, absolutely. Pay for application features - no way. So you have my money, but hamstring the application that is the only method I have to access and manage my money? No way.
You’ve come up with a great idea to grow resentment in customers. A multi-tiered app experience is an awful idea. Attract customers with your application offering and functionality, and keep said offering and functionality the same for all.
You’re a bank. An innovative bank, but a bank nonetheless. Make money from the products and services you provide.
Should I be worried about Monzo’s stability as a bank if you’re thinking charging for application functionality?
What are prospective customers going to think when they go to the Play Store to download the Monzo app and see it listed with ‘In-app purchases’?
I’m banking with you, not playing Angry Birds.
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Except just being a customer doesn’t = profit. Although customers who use Monzo as their main account are more profitable it doesn’t make the bank as a whole profitable.
We don’t have the same revenue streams as high street banks. We don’t charge lots of the fees that they do like unauthorised overdrafts, not paying a direct debit, and lots of other things. So we have to find alternative revenue streams, ones which are fair, transparent and sustainable.
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It seems a lot of the features Monzo have previously been developing fall under “changing the ease of doing something”.
- Getting paid a day early
- Bill Pots
- Salary Sorter
All of these have manual mechanisms you could employ, that don’t require the feature developed - so this is where my worry is in development of paid for features - where do you draw that line. These features could quite easily be tucked behind a paywall.
If the idea is then about paying to make the free model work better, then that suggests the free features are not created right in the first place. If you look at the Emma app, the Free version is so limited it’s almost useless, with all the paid features doing what you’d expect a basic budgeting app to do. I can see this kind of thing coming in with Categories and Budgeting generally in Monzo, and it worries me.
If the idea is then paying for vanity features, lets say app logos, themes, colours, layouts, etc. These seem so basic to develop, I’d feel a bit bothered if I had to pay extra to change the colour scheme of the app. Exceptions to this rule are when the app developer is a solo enterprise. Apps like Apollo for Reddit do this kind of thing well.
If the idea is paying for niche use cases then I could get behind that. The YNAB example - that level of budgeting is not for everyone. If what Monzo can do is create a place in the app that fully integrates a different service I need, and can completely reduce my need for 2x services and 2x payments - I could get behind that - if those features didn’t negatively impact a core user.
In the YNAB example, if the core budget is good enough for 90% of the users (and wouldn’t use YNAB), but 10% would… Why not develop that?
I feel like that’s the only category I could get behind a feature being behind a paywall. But it’s a hard line to draw - if half the features that existed today, that currently no other bank do, were behind paywall, I likely would not have gone Full Monzo.
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Im pretty sure there was a metric which said adding a customer is now net profitable?
Is this no longer the case? 
@simonb can you confirm on this
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I think the latest annual report says a customer getting their salary paid in makes Monzo £65 a year.
They are profitable versus the cost of running their account (including AWS costs and the like). However there is a large cost for things like staff and buildings and the like that is not fully covered by that
Some very well made points.
Whilst it’s great that Monzo are attracting lots of new customers, clearly they need more customers to be #fullmonzo.
For me the app is the bank - there are no branches - so the app needs to be as good as it can be, without extra fees, and if it is this is what will attract customers to be #fullmonzo.
I think going down the fully featured premium app is a barrier to that.
I am happy to purchase additional products such as loans, insurance and for Monzo to make money from these but I would not be happy to pay for the features.
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You charge 50p/day for overdraft usage and £1 to deposit cash…
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Monzo staff keep saying this, ignoring the fact that the cost base is exponentially smaller than traditional banks. And your overdraft fees and APR on loans are often very much higher than traditional banks.
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True, but while costs are less it’s still not cheap to run a bank
And the overdraft charge is mid range. 75p a day for Barclays up to £1000 for example
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