Having just spent 3 weeks in the US I have found out just how expensive using a Monzo card is.ATM fees,as high as £4.50 a withdrawal,have negated any advantage conferred by having a pre-loaded Monzo card.Unless Monzo can negotiate a deal with a major US bank for zero or much reduced ATM fees it’s cash for me next time.
Concerning option 3:
In terms of cost to Monzo, surely there is no difference between £200 a month and £2400 a year?
As someone who doesn’t travel regularly, I’d be penalised if I were to be unable to fully use my £200pcm allowance, and if there is no difference in overall cost to Monzo, why can’t I just have the whole years allowance concentrated down to a few withdrawals?
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that is the fee to you…they are talking about the fees to Monzo
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Like you, far fewer people would be able to take full advantage of a fee-free £200 pm limit than a £2400 pa limit, so the costs to Monzo would be lower with the £200 limit.
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And then you’re back to the current scenario where a group of users (non-regular travellers) subsidise another group (travellers). This is not fair, as the cost to Monzo of withdrawing £2400 per year is the same whether it is taken out in 12 divisions, or all at once. I fact, it’s behaviour one would expect from a legacy bank.
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The idea of annualising the amount the allowance was raised at last night’s event and @tom said they were open to the concept but obviously the ceiling would have to be lower for the reasons you’ve just been discussing.
A £2400/year allowance costing Monzo £48 would not be sustainable.
Personally I voted for passing the costs straight onto the user as did the vast majority of people there.
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Can anyone confirm whether Monzo get charged a percentage of the withdrawal amount, or a flat fee per withdrawal (even if that fee varies by country)?
This was touched on last night. Supposedly it’s a mix and often both. It seems Monzo aren’t 100% sure themselves (I don’t believe the ATM actually tells them the fee, just the amount to bill) hence why @tom has got a card from 10 UK banks and will be withdrawing money from them all in both Germany and the US over the next fortnight
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Roughly speaking, it’s a percentage. Sometimes there are fixed fees, but they’re tiered with the transaction size. There are about 5 or 6 different applicable fees for each transaction, which vary with the country, region and even type of ATM. The Mastercard billing manual is over 900 pages long.
As a rule of thumb, UK withdrawals cost 0.2% (so we can just swallow the cost and keep these free), EU withdrawals cost around 1% and outside-EU withdrawals cost around 2%.
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Wow, that is crazy! 
Thanks for explaining, the proposed charging structures make sense.
That’s just how America and many of their ATMs work. If you’re not a customer of that bank you get charged (usually $3) for using a competitors bank. If i’m with Citi and withdraw from a Chase ATM i’ll get charged a fee even though the cards and accounts are both american; and as there are no Monzo ATMs in the States we’re unlikely to see a zero-fee withdrawal as it costs every bank to accommodate that.
Now as @anon31249595 said
Monzo is talking about the passing on the cost of these withdrawals to us the users, which is what every other bank does (plus they add some profit on top).
That being said, using your card in the card machines is still free and the best way to go. I was in NY in June and didn’t take any cash with me (I survived!). I did however have to make 3 cash withdrawals because the subway system didn’t accept my Monzo card.
tl;dr Use your card in the POS terminals rather than withdraw cash
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Rather than a set fee or an allowance, I’d prefer a credit card transition to cash ratio.
For example, if over a period of say a year, I load up £10k, use £9k in credit card transitions, then be able to draw out £1k in cash. This allows for edge cases where you need to draw cash cos the sandwich shop’s pos is not working and allows you to draw when on holiday.
So this would not really impact loyal daily/weekly users, in the spirit that Monzo is offered. But would address those that creme from Monzo’s generosity and use it exclusively to draw money at home or abroad.
To sum up, have a CC to C ratio of eg 10%, if the user is over ‘10%’ charge whatever you want.
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That’s logical from a user point of view but don’t forget that the purpose of these fees is to reduce Monzo’s costs.
For argument’s sake, if the average user is spending 20k per year through Monzo, that would mean a 2k allowance & 2k worth of costs, rather than the much lower limit, before the user starts covering the costs, that Monzo’s setting.
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Thats tough, I guess crack your install of spagobi and find the sweet spot. Maybe 5% works and you 2x Monzo’s processing costs when more than that.
10% or £1000, whatever comes first?
You guys are pretty smart, I’m sure you’ll figure it out!
Is there a date for when a charge for non eu atm withdrawals might come in place. I’ve only just set up my card and using it for my America trip was my primary reason for getting one.
Not yet no. I’m sure we’ll be given plenty of notice before the fees come into effect.
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I’d expect it will only happen on the current account after the prepaid scheme is shut down, so likely December at the earliest, if not early 2018
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Interesting, is there anything in particular that’s led to you making that assumption?
It’s fascinating, the ability of startup businesses to make their users feel like they are members of a democratic collective.
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Nothing conclusive but I can’t imagine they’ll want to spend development time on coding the change in limits and costings into both the current accounts and the prepaid scheme, plus the time to organise and execute a vote, followed by making and implementing a decision and not springing a surprise onto the userbase. It seems to me there’ll be at least a few months, if not more, until overseas ATM withdrawals stop being free.
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