Will Monzo be successful in America?

Monzo USA 🇺🇸
23

Looking from the responses to the Verge article, it looks like these are essential to the young adults at least:

  • Export budgeting to Mint (apparently people use 3rd-party budgeting tools)
  • Mobile cheque deposit (seems like everyone offers this)
  • Focus on the APY interest rate (anything above 2%) - more Americans use credit cards because cashback rewards are actually good there, so offering a better interest rate is the main incentive to many
  • Possibly bill pay (sounds like PayPoint? idk)
  • Low ATM fees (Allpoint?)

TL;DR they need to be feature-equivalent to BBVA Simple.

Edit 1: someone also pointed out that tipping is processed differently in America. The tip is added to the order amount while the txn is still pending, a day or two after. It may be awkward to display this, but perhaps adding a note when payments are adjusted would be useful. I would like that anyway, to link refunds to their original payments if that’s even possible.

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24

Back in 2016 when I was telling people in Italy about Monzo they said “we have instant notification too”, I then found out they meant an SMS with the transaction’s details. I wouldn’t be surprised if their “instant notification” isn’t what we are used to with Monzo.
It will definitely be challenging but if Monzo listens to the customers in the US like they did here, they will improve fast!

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25

While I wish Monzo well and US banks in general are historically behind those in the U.K., there are other players now in the USA who have advantages such as brand recognition and a customer base already such as

26

I wouldn’t say they were behind, more different than the UK. We moved to Vegas 8 months ago (from the UK with a monza account ) wit work and have been setup with a Bank of America account (not the greatest out there but we were like rabbits in headlights when we came out). The BoA app is actually quite good (better than first directs which I also had an account with) and commencing a ATM transaction on your phone, then holding you phone up (nfc) to an atm will then complete the transaction (naturally you do this before you arrive at an ATM)

27

My experience of US banking way back in 2008 with Wachovia was relatively good. App based banking wasn’t really a thing then, and online banking was barely useful but they had a good banking system, instant card printing and PIN creation in bank, photo ID on the bank card, and you could have both a credit and debit function on one card.

I was studying there, and my university ID card could be used as a debit card as well, and I could load “school credit” onto it, so if I spent in a university cafe they would ask me if I wanted it taken from the debit account or school credit account.

Altogether I rather enjoyed the US system at the time. The only downside was ATM’s charged if they weren’t the specific bank’s ATM.

I can only imagine a lot has changed since.

28

Check out Plaid, there are APIs out there

29

Best of luck with this Monzo. A very bold move.

30

Monzo has some cool features but also some major flaws.
The USA banks and Simple are designed for an antiquated system the way the large incumbents like it… at present.
Fact is, Monzo fees are exorbitant.
3% on ATM transactions?? This is crazy!
There is Brazilian businessman Michael de Florença, who plans to roll out services for a digital bank that will destroy Monzo, Starling simple and these others.
Why? Most Bazilians are used to poverty and are masters in .managing poverty.
Your going to see lower ATM fees.
Lower transactional fees.
Money sharing.
Telephone credit sharing
Bill sharing
Parcelised store purchases (up to 10x) without the need for credit cards
I think we in Brazil are going to take latin America by storm and then show America and UK how it is done.

32

But not the whole truth. The fees for UK customers are 3% for foreign ATM withdrawals over ÂŁ200 pm.

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33

Lower than zero? I’d certainly be interested in that.

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34

The British and US media are fairly parochial. A press release by a Brazilian billionaire isn’t going to gain much traction. It’s not banned. Do you have a link?

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36

That doesn’t mean that a Brazilian bank will “destroy” the competition - consumers wanting the “best deal” is not a new thing.

If you have all of these low fees, no fees, and amazing features - how will the bank make money? :thinking::thinking:

37

Not sure why the flag - maybe I’m missing something? :thinking:

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:man_shrugging: It’s often a mystery to me

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39

I would suspect because the person has close relationships with the Brazil digital bank and it’s really advertising. But has used plausible deniability to make it seem as if they are making valid criticisms of Monzo when it’s really a lot of noise.

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40

If you check on Twitter a user posted about a Brazilian bank, much better than any other finch company, in every single news article about Monzo going to the US. I guess it went from opinion to trolling pretty fast.

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41

If so, I’d rather the merits of the flagged post be challenged by reason, logic and some well expressed opinion than by flagging it.

42

I know, the flagging process is not really clear, I didn’t flag these messages but I believe that many people have to flag a message for it to be hidden?

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Yes, I believe that’s right.

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What is this bank? Can’t find anything about it or the creator?