What was your Monzo discovery story?

Monzo is four years old now, where has all the time gone? Speaking to people at Monzo HQ and you really get an idea of the varied ways that people actually discovered Monzo!

For me, I was at university and working part time at a tapas bar in Soho in the evenings. I couldn’t help but notice all the flashy hot coral cards that more and more of the yuppie professionals were tapping on the reader to buy their glasses of Montepulciano with (most of our customers were working in trendy publishing houses or in the media companies upstairs).

Once I’d signed up myself (two weeks on the waiting list - it was 2017), I was hooked. My three other flatmates were soon signed up too. A couple of years later and now I’m working here :sunglasses:

So, what’s your Monzo discovery story? I feel that a lot of them are going to fit into this kind of word-of-mouth mould, but there’s bound to be some fruity ones in there! Let me know below :arrow_down:

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I needed a joint account that didn’t require a salary being paid into it, as my partner and I had decided to move in together. We were both renting but largely splitting our time staying at either flat, it was daft so we started looking for a place to stay, quickly found and got a place, and agreed that we’d split ‘house bills’ (rent, electricity, broadband etc) and I suggested a joint account would be easiest.

Off to Google!

And there on the first page of Google results was Monzo and it rang a bell, I have some friends in London who signed up to Monza when it was a pre-paid card, one of which I knew would’ve done a lot of checking and research, so I clicked through to Monzo.

20 minutes later, we both had our own personal accounts, and a joint account, setup.

The cards arrived a few days later at our new address and it’s been my main personal account every since.

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I was about to go on an Interrailing trip and wasn’t at that time a credit card holder. I was going to 4 different countries that all had 4 different currencies, no chance I was walking around with Croat, Slovenian, Hungarian and Czech currency.

Did a little search on MSE and found a link to Monzo - saw the waiting list (was definitely a few tens of thousands) and though “probably not”. Did a bit more searching and found a link to jump the queue completely. Did that and didn’t look back.

Have loved Monzo since the prepaid days and am happy with them as my current account provider.

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Was a happy Supercard user - used only while abroad - and it saved me tons on overseas ATM fees and exchange rate charges. It was also app driven with a very efficient way to link it to your cards for top-ups, etc. Then they announced it was to be shut down (no wonder - they must have lost a small fortune with that one!) and a quick research into the alternatives revealed Monzo was the best for me at the time, also with a very good app. Signed up mid 2017 and was a beta Pre-Paid user, then went with Current account and Joint Account when they launched.

Loved it so far - and you don’t hear that about banks often. Keep up the good work :monzo:

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Stumbled on it whilst looking for an account back in late 2016.

Barrier for entry then was £100 top up - with no ability to send it back without spending it or withdrawing. I took the plunge and registered and I’ve never looked back.

Beta days feel so very long ago now.

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I should echo this as well. Only with Monzo a couple of months but already much much happier, and much more ‘in touch’ with my money since moving my current account over.

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I discovered Monzo through Money Savings Expert in 2017 when I was looking for a travel card to use for my summer holiday. After signing up I realised Monzo was more than just a travel card and I’ve been using it non stop since :mondo:

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I opened my account in December 2017, purely because I couldn’t stop hearing about Monzo even if I tried. News articles were absolutely everywhere! :joy:

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Recommended to my wife by a group of friends she was about to go on holiday with in September 18. They told her the benefits so intrigued I also investigated.

Whilst she was away I signed up. Went full Monzo after a week.

Never looked back.

Ive mentioned this before, but…

I was chatting to the CFO of Crowdcube, and he showed me his Mondo card. I think it took about another year before I could actually try it on Android!

I signed up to Mondo after seeing a tweet about it in 2016 (can’t remember exactly when) but my initial top-up was 9 July, 2016. Since I signed up, it has been used as my primary spending card. Since the current account launched, it was my primary bank account.

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I honestly don’t remember how Monzo came to my attention, joined in June 2017. Most likely got recommended from someone during my travelling days, prob over a bottle of Chang :beers:

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So I remembered the Mondo chat, and thought it was worth keeping an eye on, then I lost track when the name changed, and then rediscovered Monzo when someone at my previous employers rocked up flashing some hot coral.

Finally got a card in May 2017, full Monzo from last November. Very happy all in all.

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I still remember it was around late August/early September 2017, I was eating dinner and one of my friend showed me his Monzo prepaid card. We were both fans of fintech; me being apple fanboy and him being google fanboy ~ we werefunnily discussing about cryptocurrency and cryptopay card at that time; by chance he showed me his Monzo card. The hot coral was striking and I signed into the waiting list using his referral link ( golden ticket). I still remember being 40000 + on the waiting list. I completely forgot about Monzo until the card reached to my door step. I top up the card with £100 and started using it for day to day shopping. Mid 2018 - someone used my debit card details of my legacy bank and it was a big fuss with the legacy bank to get the payment refunded back to my account and to get a new card. It took good 4 hours on the phone to get this simple issue sorted. At that moment, I was reflecting to myself if I was with Monzo, I would have received instant notifications and would have freeze my card and received replacement card on the next day. That was the day I decided to go for fullmonzo and I have no regrets at all. It was the best decision ever.

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Re-posting this from another thread:

I was serving a customer and I noticed their card bright orange which sparked a conversation and they told me all about Monzo. When I got home though and wanted to look into it I couldn’t remember the name of the bank so I just googled for ‘bright orange bank card’ and Monzo was the first result.

So without the brightly coloured card I (probably) would never have found Monzo.
The next time that person comes in to my work I’m definitely going to thank them too

After about a week on the wait list I got my account and have been full Monzo for nearly a year.
From there I joined this forum and found a load of other interesting fintechs.

Of course I have since learned it is known as hot coral and I always get comments asking me what sort of bank card it is.
I always love spotting other people using it in the wild, I always have to show them I have one too. :mondo:

My sister invited me. As soon as I turned 18 I got one straight away because she said it would be easier for her to send me money.
No fancy story but that’s what happens when your sister works for the company :rofl:

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I had heard about ‘Mondo’ on social media but then saw @tom at AWS 2016 Summit and then really got interested. Got a card and then used it casually, especially when travelling. Signed up for the current account as soon as it was released and went #fullmonzo back in August last year as soon as joint accounts were released in labs. Couldn’t be happier (well, I could: Scheduled income)

I have just joined Monzo. Being retired I probably do not fall within the usual demographic for Monzo Account Holders. I had come across the bank in my researches about Challenger Banks and Internet Banking. I then noticed that two of my sons had the coral card and asked them if they found Monzo useful and reliable and covered their requirements. The answer to all three questions was positive. So I decided to open an account. I also felt it was important to have a second bank account just in case my Primary Bankers suffered a major technological problem or data breach, so I could easily switch to another bank account if necessary.

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I was going on a trip abroad last August and had been looking at travel money cards, however the friend I was travelling with was already a Monzo user and recommended I open an account due to the fee free foreign transactions.
I signed up and liked it so much I kept using it after we returned home. I became a total convert and went #FullMonzo 5 months later.

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I got an email from IFTTT about the new services they’d connected, one of which was monzo. I already had IFTTT but only really used it for novelty applets, the examples intrigued me so i looked into monzo and decided to give it a go.

I now use it for my main spending account as does my wife and we have a joint account for our petrol amd groceries budgets and for a bunch of joint pots