I am a very very happy Monzo customer. I have managed to save for a holiday (next week!) and a few other things, all in the space of a couple of months.
It is an excellent banking app, that will only improve.
But it isn’t, for me, a dedicated budgetting and finance calculator/monitor app.
Should it be? Is that where Monzo wants to head? How far down that road can they go whilst keeping the core ‘bank’ features intact and easy to use?
I ask these questions purely out of curiosity, and on seeing the rise of ‘it would be cool if Monzo could also…’ type posts, all of which I can see have validity but many of which focus on tracking money elsewhere.
Should Monzo let us track and monitor financial products from other companies at a granular level?
Things like…
Pensions
Loans
Savings
Credit Cards
Mortgages
etc etc
I have my Barclaycard connected and the balance is useful, but I’m not sure I want Monzo to be THE place I go to get all the details. Or do I?
Where do YOU want Monzo to go? I know Monzo have published some of their thoughts, but fast forward 3 years, what does Monzo offer you by then??
But does that mean ‘Summary of…’ or ‘detailed management of…’ is where I’m wondering. A hub makes sense, but soon it becomes not enough and at that point, do Monzo go and buy another app like Money Dashboard and combine the two? Monzo Dashboard anyone? (@Tom if this happens it was my idea!!)
For me its about the ease, it is far easier to have everything in one place when the products you have are not from the same provider. A probably poor analogy could be, you have a wardrobe for each of your shirts, trousers, jackets, socks etc. It is clearly much more hassle to go to each wardrobe and get what you want - but if you had one wardrobe that had everything in it then you’re onto a winner.
The problem I have sometimes is that access is access, maybe allowing transactions from a hub is great, but it is still our money and that shouldn’t be automated to the extent where we put faith in an app to allow us to be on top of our finances. The app should help but never get to the point where we lose the ability to notice what we are actually doing.
I would prefer that the budgeting stays at a rather basic level and does the bare minimum to allow for individuals to think about what is going where and how to spend things if they are on a budget.
I would however like further integration and amalgamation that allows me to go onto Monzo and see everything.
I like the way Barclaycard has been done, shame it is not live but yeah all good, I’d also like to make a payment from there. Transactions I don’t care as i have the app for that so I guess summary for cards and maybe the sae for the rest
I’d very much like the Monzo app to be able to track my credit card spend in the same way as it tracks my spending with my Monzo card. I recently got a BA Amex card that gives me Avios every time I use it, and so I’ve switched to using it for almost everything. However, I have felt a certain loss of visibility and control compared to when I primarily used my Monzo card.
The Monzo would truly become my hub if I could see my itemised BA Amex spend in exactly the same format as my Monzo account.
In an ideal world:
My BA Amex transactions would be listed separately. Ditto any other credit card
There would also be a combined transaction view of all my spend on any card or account I used, which would help me to understand whether I was on budget
I’d even receive notifications from Monzo whenever I used my BA Amex card
For me personally, my mortgage balance wouldn’t be useful through Monzo. I think it would be useful to be able to see loans and some savings accounts - though not all savings accounts, because sometimes not seeing an account makes it easier to save and forget, and therefore reduces the temptation to raid that account.
Surely then you’d want BA Amex to show and act like Monzo? You are then using Monzo as a ‘hub’ not a ‘bank’ if ‘almost everything’ you pay for is with BA Amex.
(just playing devils advocate here, I understand why you’d want this!)
Yeah I’m the same. For debts especially or things I don’t interact with and don’t need to interact with every day. Makes sense for those things and yes let me make a payment from Monzo too!
I’ll take your wardrobe analogy further. Fine have the things you interact with daily in one place, but I don’t keep my waterproof jacket in there, or my wellies. All I need to know for them is where they are and that I know what state they are in (so I go to a cupboard (click) and quickly check them).
I fear this analogy make break soon if it hasn’t already!
No, I think if Monzo can deliver this kind of service, they would have a significant opportunity to disintermediate other financial services providers, because I’d never need to log onto any of my other online accounts. This would be a distinct competitive advantage for Monzo, since it would limit the ability of those financial services providers to market their products to customers, which is one of the big concerns they have today. It would give Monzo an unparalleled advantage.
Another way it would benefit Monzo is that they’d have a full view of all my spending. In a world in which data is of huge value, it would give Monzo the opportunity to tailor recommendations to my specific needs, and thus drive value for both them and me.
Granted, you can quickly check them - but truly I want to see everything and to be able to interact with all of my things in one place - that is also my main bank account. I don’t get on with aggregators because its another app - if I want to check my LISA - I have to go into the app and check it, if I then want to pay into it I have to go through the process in the LISA app and then I need to move money from pots in Monzo - I think Monzo can crack the market here and allow the checking, payment and movements to all be done natively.
My accounts may all be separate but it creates a whole - having an app that works in the same way is where I see financial services heading (heck you have banking “groups” that own 3/4 different banks within it) - where I draw the line is when this is automated and we don’t have regard for what we are actually spending.
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Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
14
I’ve tried Yolt and didn’t get on with it (possibly because my accounts wouldn’t connect or were just not available as yet) - but more than just an aggregator I want it to also be my main bank account - I don’t think I have any rationale for this decision other than I really like the hub and spoke model/ ideology - I don’t want a third party app to aggregate and then to still have to do the transactions in their own apps (although because I’ve not really played around with Yolt or Emma this may be possible)
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Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
16
I think that is coming to Yolt. At the moment you can transfer money between accounts at a limited number of banks, and I’m sure they’ll be keen to expand the service.
In an ideal world, I’d like an account which will work for banking like Curve works for cards.
I am far from a financial expert. At the moment I have financial products in multiple places out of necessity (namely, that it would be nice to earn some interest on my savings but I’m really not looking for the absolute best deal), but I would much MUCH prefer to have all of my products in one place.
Not all of my products able to be seen in one place, but all of them actually in one place. I would close down my other savings accounts if I were offered the option to save and earn interest through Monzo, on balances below £500. I’d prefer this to being able to see my existing savings accounts in Monzo.
I am never going to be rich. I am never going to be into maximising my investments. What I want is to see all of my money in one place, be able to actually take action without leaving Monzo, and have Monzo present me with a total amount for each account and also a total amount overall so that I can see exactly how much money I have.
Ahh I see - maybe i’ll try it again but I think Monzo could really do some work in this area - beginning naturally with the credit card stuff they’ve been working on.
I suppose I know i’ll always have a “main” account and so to have that as my hub with access and ease to connect to and transfer between all my other accounts is what I want - and because I like and trust Monzo I’d want it to be them!
This sounds great - exactly what I’d like to see.
Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
19
Don’t get too excited. When I said limited number of banks, there’s only about six or so.
