Will Monzo be successful in America?

I think NuBank.

I don’t speak Portuguese, but it looks a bit like Monzo, but with points.

But only for giants

2 Likes

Just to balance out the Brazilian guy who said Monzo are doomed because their bank is the best, see here…

1 Like

I hope monzo all the best with their ventures, I do however think there are thing that need sorting with the UK side of the bank before going to international. Many problems are discussed in this forum, and many things people would like to see happen, as well as their not bring a full range of banking available yet. I just think it would make sense to have a strong and fully sorted UK vision before branching out too far.

1 Like

That time may never arrive though and the moment missed

There will always be opinions on what can be changed and people’s expectations and demands may adjust

I’m pretty sure no-one in the US is waiting till all two million of us in the UK are totally happy before jumping on board

2 Likes

Seems like there are 2 camps: The investors and fans who think this is a great step in Monzo’s growth and development and wish them the best, and then the other 2 million users who are left scratching their heads and wondering “how does this benefit me?”, “why can’t they focus on UK customer service issues?”, “why can’t they fully bake their UK product before doing anything else?”, “can I now use my card in the US like a US citizen?”, “can I use my UK referral in the US?” etc etc

Monzo’s expansion doesn’t benefit the latter group at all, although it won’t negatively affect them either. They are going to have at least £100million to spend on their efforts over there. It’s not like they’re going to send half the UK COps to Vegas to deal with the new demand on a shoestring budget. It sounds like it’s going to be a completely different banking operation so I wouldn’t worry about them forgetting about UK users etc.

I do understand the latter group’s point of view though. Monzo has flopped again at scaling their customer service and it is really unacceptable at the moment, but I think it’s a bit extreme to say Monzo should not expand to the US because they have a temporary and fixable problem in the UK :man_shrugging:

13 Likes

I think try should expand. But I just think there needs to be clarity on the sorting of the UK product. It’s not just customer services that people are having issues with there are plenty of gripes within the forum. It’s worth remembering that one great product will nearly always be better than 2 half done products.
The investors etc would do well to remember that the 2 million you talk of are the majority so would be worth listening to. Especially as Monzo claims to be the bank of the people.

3 Likes

I agree if Monzo doesnt continue to improve in Uk you will have a valid point , it is hopefully not a case of , job done in Uk , now lets focus all our efforts on US at the expense of everything we have built here in UK

4 Likes

Hopefully not. I just think lots of new company’s take on too much too early and end up out of their depth.
Hope this is not the case and monzo do very well (only time will tell) they must hold on to the principle of a customer led bank though.

1 Like

Hopefully a way around this “half-baked” “parity” issue is to bring back the “Big List” or Roadmap - could have one for the US product and one for the UK product. That way everyone is in the loop as to what is being worked on or looked at.

The whole transparency thing is great and for the most part is there and works - but when things get dropped without any information it makes it harder to see where the direction of travel is.

4 Likes

I think the making monzo section of the app was supposed to take over from this but unfortunately its just never taken off or been updated enough

And from the Making Monzo email:

We’ve had great fun putting together Making Monzo every month, and updating you all on the work we’re doing. But it’s a big time commitment, and we think we can do more with that effort elsewhere.

So there won’t be a regular Making Monzo email every month any more. You’ll still get email updates on big product releases, but as and when they happen.

Instead, we’re going to put this time and energy into reaching more people through campaigns, events and online experiences that build our community.

As the company grows it seems transparency declines very slowly. By the seems at least to me that’s how it is

I wonder if there will be a single winner or room for multiple winners in this market. Will digital banking be like Facebook or Twitter where winner takes all or is there room for a load of successful neo-banks? The network effects suggest the benefits are when everyone is on the same platform so it could be that there is a single winner and the truth is that it would be unlikely to be a UK upstart who could win that in the US market. A friend fleetingly had a unicorn startup (basically invented fantasy sport in the US) which was based in Edinburgh and his main US competitor immediately went down the flag-waving route (and consequently won a lot of the market). I would think it is likely that a US based clone is more likely to gain traction (Chime?) for this reason alone.

Just a thought but when companies go through Y Combinator they have to register their companies in the US as a requirement, for global domination it would make sense for Monzo to do this sooner rather than later and get some Americans in senior positions. I appreciate this will be an unpopular opinion but I’m not aware of any UK company bucking this trend - happy to be educated on this point.

2 Likes

I think the fact that there are so many incumbent legacy banks (and challengers) would suggest the market is too diverse for there to be a single ‘winner’ otherwise I think we’d have one already.

Furthermore, the fact that we don’t really have any American banks in the UK that have “taken-over” is telling as well. Why haven’t they, is it because they can’t, or the business risk is too high? I do think it is easier to slip through the UK/US as a challenger/ fin-tech but even financial services haven’t quite made its way from US to UK - RobinHood for instance haven’t managed it yet and are likely to now find it harder as Freetrade has come in.

In today’s social media space you don’t just have one site as you say you have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat - they all aim to do more or less the same thing, but provide very different ways of doing it.

This makes sense to be - they may possibly set up a separate board to manage the US business and I’d be worried If it was just Brits in the senior positions - its a completely different market and world, they’d need people who know it.

No i didnt mean the making monzo emails or monthly updates.

I meant the making monzo section of the app, it was to be the replacement for the roadmap and to be honest it gives no real indication on status of things or a vague timeline.

Loans for example… will that ever be ticked off? Hasnt been anything said on that for ages.

Interestingly, my sister in the US was saying it’s a shame it’s a Mastercard, as Visa is more widely accepted over there…

It could still be a Monzo VISA card unless I missed it stated elsewhere that it’s defo a Mastercard? #mindblown

Apparently Square’s prepaid VISA card program was facilitated by Sutton Bank.

1 Like

They said MasterCard debit in the announcement

Sutton seem to mainly do prepaid cards :eyes:

1 Like