What made you open a Monzo account?

No problem :slight_smile:

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just for the craic

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Reason for opening - to get a joint account primarily, plus a few friends had raved about Mondo (back in the day) and I thought it would be good way to try out a new bank account.

FullMonzo? - Nope. Until there is a better way to ‘hide/move/manage’ my bill payments/direct debits I won’t be moving. Bank of Scotland allowed me a separate account for all my bills, one SO at the start of the month and then I know all my bills are paid.

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To add to this, my previous bank NatWest (it may or may not be the same for another UK banks) would not show what the money in the “available” had been spent on, whereas with monzo you can instantly see where your money is going, which I guess is a budgeting feature in itself, its useful to know what bills have already gone out without having to ring up the bank to ask what was pending.

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I guess I always did the math. So now I sort of understand what people mean. I thought people weren’t seeing pending transactions for days.

I am confused about this one. Why would you need to ring the bank for this one? You couldn’t see standing orders or direct debits online?

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I rarely used online banking, I was always using the app instead however to my knowledge I don’t think you could, with NatWest anyway.

Correction: I know you could see direct debits both online and on the app, but anything that wasn’t a direct debit like subscriptions to things like Netflix, Spotify etc, they wouldn’t show anywhere

I’m definitely lookikg forward to this feature too.

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So are subscriptions random in the UK? I would think they come out the same day each month, week etc? All my subscriptions are in USD.

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Is the benefit of this interest?

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For most things they will come out on whichever day of the month you originally subscribed, so for example if I started using Netflix on the 15th of June, my next payment date would be the 15th of July.

I’ve noticed you in the US-specific threads so I assume you’re coming at it from a US perspective. I have zero experience with US banking apps but I have read some reviews of the newer mobile-only banks like Chime. They highlight instant spending notifications and instant balance updates as key features. For example

The peace of mind that comes with instant alerts is one of the top reasons people choose Chime Bank, and why we gave them such a high rating for this Chime Bank review

I’me curious as to why such reviews would make a point of highlighting such features if they’re so standard in the US?

I think this is changing. Nationwide have shown pending transactions in the app for several months, now.

My guess is most people do not know how to turn them on. Chase for example I can get a push notification for any transaction over x. Set X to $0.00, then you have instant email, SMS or push for all transactions. I am sure some
of the small local banks do not have this. But all the national and large regional banks would.

Tho I am curious the benefit for this other than fraud as when I use my card I do not need a notification I just used it.

I opened a Monzo account (pre-paid) at the time to take advantage of the EURO ATM free cash withdrawals! I used Revolut at the time for holding my EURO currency but the free fee limit was quite smal,l so opened a Monzo account purely for that reason!

Maybe it was a bit cheeky at the time, but I am now full Monzo, so they won :slight_smile:

For me its not so much the notification of the transaction per se, its the associated instant updating of the balance. I don’t want to have a transaction not appear in my transaction list for days, I don’t want it to appear as pending, and I don’t want the balance to update only after the transaction has fully cleared. Traditional banks in the UK tend to use one or more of these approaches even those that have started to give instant notifications of spending.

With Monzo and some other mobile-centric banks the transaction is instantly treated as if it has cleared leading to instant updating of your balance, instant ability to interact with the transaction (such as add notes and tags), and instant effects on your budgeting and spending analytics. This is what I like.

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Definitely a step in the right direction.

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I was having trouble with one of my bank cards with another bank. For some reason it went from working everywhere to only working in some places. With it being a bank that meant travelling a fair distance to sort out (even after getting a replacement card).
I was also looking into new ways to save money as I have reached a point where that is now more of an option. One day i think I came across an advert for Monzo on facebook. I dont usually go for Facebook ads but looked into it a bit more.
This was about a month ago and I found this forum just last week. Needless to say it has been a good decision. I am very pleased with how Monzo works.

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I found Monzo right as the mondo>Monzo switch was happening in August of 2016, I was on the waitlist for a while but actually activated my card on my 19th birthday, I was intrigued by the idea of a mobile-only account and so signed up. Glad I did!

When the current account beta began I signed right up hoping to use Monzo more frequently as my main card, just transferring cash over from my main account, and used Monzo that way for a long time.

I finally went #FullMonzo this February after an appalling experience at my former High Street bank.

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My opening story is quite simple. I’d actually heard of Starling first and had one of their accounts out of curiosity to see what all the fuss was about. So when I heard of Monzo I wanted to see what they were doing too. I don’t use either of them very much, but for different reasons in each case. I’m keeping an open mind though :slight_smile:

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I was watching the Martin Lewis show on TV back in 2017 when Monzo was still a prepaid card, a few months before we was going on our jollies. I liked the idea of no Non-stirling transaction fees, him indoors didn’t like the idea of an online account, so I opened an account. As soon as we got back he went & opened an account and we’ve saved a fortune since.
We haven’t gone full Monzo yet, as we get better deals with our other banks in other areas of use

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