Will Monzo Continue To Offer Free ATM Withdrawals Outside the UK?

If only there was some sort of collective name? :thinking:
I know, lets go with United Kingdom :wink::laughing:

Sorry, @anon44204028. I couldnā€™t resist that :slightly_smiling_face:

3 Likes

There is no such country as ā€˜United Kingdomā€™ it is ā€˜the united kingdom of great britain and northern irelandā€™ which a bit of a mouthfull, and as Great Britain is geographically separate from Northern Ireland I prefer to use geographical terminology instead of political.

When perceived non-beneficial changes are proposed, itā€™s only natural that discussion is going to arise, which maybe ad nauseum to some. But no less important to the current userbase.

As a forum leader you are, by proxy, representing Monzo. And to be quite honest, youā€™re responses are argumentative and flippant, which is in stark contrast to the service and responses of other team members and forum leaders. This detracts from the good nature and culture that has been associated with the Monzo brand thus far. Disappointing.

To my knowledge it would appear that this is exactly what they have done. Iā€™m led to understand that they paid MoneySavingExpert.com, and others, to promote the prepaid card as a travel card, even setting up special queue-jumping marketing pages for the purpose.

When Martin Lewis says ā€œMoney Saving Expert has blagged (special deal) for readersā€¦ā€, I think that is code for weā€™ve entered into a commercial arrangement for which we are paid to forward customers to (business name).

I disagree with you on two points. Firstly I felt his comments were reasonable rather than flipant. Secondly Leaders are NOT Monzo staff members and are not here to rubberstamp any Monzo ideas but independent individuals given a position of trust and responsibility based on their actions and performance in this community.

3 Likes

that is as maybe, as RichardR said they have promoted it for use at point of sale not for access to cash at ATM. It has not been plugged as a cash card but a debit card.

Noted. But from what Iā€™m understanding, people are using it to withdraw cash cheaply for whatever reason rather than use contactless, for instance?

1 Like

"The pre-paid product and current account are different. When you move to the current account, you will either accept the new terms and conditions or not.

The choice is yours."

Not exactly an endearing post to a fellow customer - basically telling them to accept it or do one? Itā€™s certainly in contrast to Tomā€™s community-based feedback strategy on it.

Also, I never said forum leaders are" staff members". I said they were representatives of Monzo. A very different, yet important, distinction.

Users in this community are welcome to disagree with each other, in whichever way they choose, as long as itā€™s within the community guidelines.

Weā€™re encouraged to avoid responding to a postā€™s tone instead of its actual content, to help ensure that every post improves the conversation.

If youā€™re concerned that a userā€™s post has breached the guidelines, please flag it or DM a member of the team.

2 Likes

I donā€™t think these data points are the best to go on.

For example, I would not be classed as an active user. However, when I get the invite to the current account I will move everything across to Monzo with 0 hesitation. I knew from day one of signing up Iā€™d eventually be with Monzo long term, Iā€™m just lazy and donā€™t like having to top up and have my bills paid from a different account

2 Likes

I agree. The percentage of weekly active users is more useful as an indicator for things like whether or not users do continue to use Monzo after their holiday, even though fee free foreign transactions is the initial attraction for some.

In other words, to put this in extreme terms, would Monzo lose most of itā€™s users if the fee free withdrawals benefit is removed? That percentage suggests that it wouldnā€™t because users clearly value the service for other reasons too.

Iā€™m definitely hopeful that there will be plenty of users like yourself who do sign up for the current accounts :crossed_fingers:

1 Like

Agreed - the only thing I would be concerned about is that currently the spot FX withdrawals are a huge selling point for some customers.

The key IMO from a growth perspective is to get to critical mass asap. If Monzo could get to 5m/10m current account users then we are going to see an increase in other companies wanting to provide services via Monzoā€™s marketplace platform. Naturally this is going to increase the people wanting to sign up to Monzo and the thus growth in customers starts to become exponential.

Yes, spot FX costs Monzo money if looked at in isolation. But if we compared how much money Monzo are currently saving vs other banks on a cost per acquisition of customer basis, the difference is huge.

To summarise, my advice would be as follows, hold out on free FX withdrawals for a year or two. If you absolutely need to change it on some way then replace it with another ā€˜headline grabbingā€™ selling point because IMO as soon as you get people signed up (without the restrictions of the prepaid card) they are going to realise pretty quickly that they need to migrate their finances to Monzo.

to offer it free for a couple of years and then switch to fees is a typical bait and switch scheme. I think morally it better to start from scratch with fees

Hereā€™s the thing, fee free foreign ATM usage is costing Monzo

per year. Monzo will have between 800k-1m users by the end of the year. That means that next year, if Monzo didnā€™t gain another user, these fees would cost Monzo at least Ā£6.4m. Thatā€™s half of the money that they raised from non-crowdfunding investors in their last fundraising round. And Monzo is now 10x bigger, in terms of users, than it was this time last year - imagine if they see the same growth next year.

So while I agree with your point about this feature being a very useful way to attract new users, there needs to be a middle ground because thatā€™s a very expensive way to market the service.

Donā€™t get me wrong I do completely understand that point and have seen those figures before (for the record I donā€™t have a dog in this fight, any limits arenā€™t likely to effect me).

My point is more bigger picture, as it stands there is no marketplace, there is no commission being paid to Monzo. Letā€™s make the assumption that Tom is referring to an average cost per user on an annual basis.

Do we honestly not believe that Monzo isnā€™t capable of receiving income per customer substantially higher than the Ā£8 it costs them for ATM withdrawals? Or interest from debit balances (granted, in a low interest environment this wonā€™t be much but when LIBOR starts heading north ((which it will)) then these will be meaningful)

Furthermore, the macro landscape of terminal fees isnā€™t clear yet. Youā€™d expect prices to fall as they have for roaming costs etc.

Whatever Monzo decide, I think they need to do it before the full current account rollout is complete because they will be perceived like all other companies that promise not to do something and then do it (Sky, Phone Carriers etc) and thatā€™s the last thing we want as Monzo are so far away from these companies and so much more customer focused.

1 Like

I like the points on if you use it for everyday use then you could have it fee free or higher limits.

If you have just got the card for using abroad then cost fees and smaller limits.

Very much in the same way you have criteria for you Enchanced limits.

Iā€™ve got to disagree with you there. I donā€™t think itā€™s a bait and switch at all. At least intentionally.
They wanted to create an account that has zero fees. They made a mistake in not accounting for, or underestimating, just how much some would cost them. Theyā€™ve got to adapt and find a solution as close to their stated initial goals.

2 Likes

Lots of people did this with Nationwide about 10 years ago when they introduced free ATM withdrawals abroad, it has the MSE promotion too

Whilst this is true and they have underestimated the number of people using excessive ATM fees, I just wanna say that I think they can hardly be blamed for not predicting these things, like @anon4562461 I really donā€™t think it was an intentional bait and switch.

I guess its like everything like for example the all you can eat restaurant, sure most people will go and stuff themselves occasionally but there is always one who is there everyday piling it high and stuffing their coat pockets full to the detriment of everyone else. Personally I think all kind of free or unlimited deals without setting a limit are open to abuse.

4 Likes

their prepaid beta was also planned for approx 80,000 users not 400,000

2 Likes