What We Know About the Partnerships / FAQ 🤝 💡 🚇 🏡 (open Wiki)

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

Monzo has recently begun testing partnerships, as part of the current account preview so we’re beginning to see this service take shape Users are starting to receive notifications in their feed with details of these insights / recommendations / ads / offers (I’ll refer to them as “invites” for the remainder of this Wiki), from a limited group of partners.

There’s been lots of feedback so far so I’ve created this open Wiki (which anyone can add to), to answer frequently asked questions & collect all of the key details in one place.

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How will partnerships work?

[The] goal is to help achieve Monzo’s vision of becoming the financial control centre for people’s lives.

An important part of how we’ll do that is by working with other companies to create experiences that will help people save or make the most of their money.

There’s more details under the “Partnerships is a brand new area of the business. How do you know where to start?” header in the Meet Phil – Head of Partnerships blog post.

How will the service develop?

@philhewinson

We’re definitely working towards a more personalized offering, with a one-click signup in the app (rather than having to enter data into the flow that we already have) and targeted to people who we have a high confidence they can save money. Fundamentally, we need people to move their energy direct debits over to Monzo to do this properly (and may require asking for a few extra inputs like existing usage / tariff) and then the experience will be significantly better. We’re just a bit early in the current account rollout to have enough energy direct debits moved over to do this well today, but still wanted to get started with the testing. We also plan to surface this more in context (e.g. next to your energy direct debits rather than randomly in your transaction feed). And of course having appropriate controls (e.g. opt-in as you say). Bear with us

Will Monzo always offer me the cheapest deal?

@tom

We want Monzo to be a financial control centre that presents you with these kinds of money-saving opportunitites and gives you the ability to switch in one or two clicks. I think it will always be possible to find a strictly cheaper gas and electricity deal (if only by a few pounds) somewhere out there, if you’re a power-user and put the time into researching and manually switching. We want our options to be cheap enough that you always know you’re getting a good deal, and so easy that the 66% of people can take up the offer in a couple of seconds.

How does Monzo make money from these partnerships?

Partnerships like this one are also key to how we plan to build Monzo into a sustainable business. Typical commissions on switching energy range between £40 and £50 per switch, so as well as helping people save on their bills, we should also be able to make some meaningful money.

In our first test with Bulb we split that commission, keeping half for ourselves and passing on half to the customer. In the long term, we are considering a few different models, and want to find the fairest way of being paid. If you have any opinions or suggestions about how this should work, please share your thoughts in the dedicated discussion I’ve started on the forum. We’ll always be open about how we’re making money, to make sure we’re being totally transparent.

Quote from the testing energy partnerships blog post.

Will Monzo share my data with 3rd parties?

@tom

We will never transfer your data to a third party without your permission, so you should never receive emails or calls you didn’t expect. We are always thinking about ways we could be inadvertently making you trackable, and how to avoid that as well.

Which other companies will Monzo partner with?

• TransferWise, for international money transfers
• Mortgage providers
• Companies like TFL, Nectar etc.
• And more

@philhewinson

A roadmap isn’t yet clear, but we’re thinking about building some integrations on savings / investments, mortgage switching and possibly cashback.

It’s important that the kinds of companies we partner with are well-matched with our values, and that they help improve our users’ lives in some way. That might mean giving them good value for money or great customer service. But could also include other attributes that matter to our users, like renewable energy, for example.

Quote from the Meet Phil – Head of Partnerships blog post.

What’s the end goal?

Monzo - Make money easy

Taking part in the tests

What’s being tested?

We’ll be testing a new feature that allows people to switch energy providers. In five minutes and a few clicks, people who receive the recommendation will be able to transfer their energy contracts to a new provider. That could be a supplier recommended by our partners at price comparison service Energy Helpline, or one we’re working with directly like green energy companies, Octopus Energy or Bulb.

Quote from the testing energy partnerships blog post.

What do the invites look like?

Image from the testing energy partnerships blog post.

Is this how the invites will be presented in the future?

@philhewinson

Initially, the targeting may be sub-optimal and we may surface a lot of these experiences in the feed just because it’s the easiest way to ship these tests and learn from them - it doesn’t mean that will be where any given experience will live long-term - we’ll always aim to provide these in the best context within Monzo.

Will Monzo continue providing invites in the app?

@alexs

Tom was asked about how Monzo would stop Monzo becoming an (annoying) advertising venue at July’s open office.

He acknowledged the fact that it’s difficult to figure out where to draw the line - which is obviously partly what tests like this one are for. But ultimately he said that

if a bunch of people say that “I really hate this, get out of my feed” we just won’t do it anymore

What can I expect if I receive an invite?

See the “How it works” section of the testing energy partnerships blog post.

Can I opt out?

If you receive a recommendation as part of this test and decide it’s not for you, you can delete it from your transaction feed with a single tap. If you want, you can also choose to opt-out of receiving similar recommendations in the future.

Quote from the testing energy partnerships blog post.

More details.

But bear in mind that this service is only in it’s very early stages & will improve, as the targeting gets better e.g.

@philhewinson

The plan of course is to do better targeting (e.g. if we see you are overpaying on your energy direct debits, assuming you are paying those through your Monzo current account, we’d send you an offer like this)

@alexs

They can definitely tell you that you would save money by buying a monthly travel pass from TFL, rather than paying for your travel on an ad hoc basis, based on your spending history. Then, offer you a loan so that you can buy that season pass straight away & spread the cost in installments.

What’s been the result so far?

We began testing this feature last month when we trialled an early experience with 95 Monzo current account holders. We had 13 signups from our initial test, which is really promising!

Quote from the testing energy partnerships blog post.

Misc

Who’s responsible for managing the partnerships?

@philhewinson is the Head of Partnerships at Monzo, here’s his introduction -

Meet Phil – Head of Partnerships

When’s the next big update?

In the next few weeks I’ll share more about what a Monzo marketplace might look like, and the role partnerships plays within in it

Quote from the testing energy partnerships blog post.

Have feedback? Please share it here