I was responding to @Argyll’s post:
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Not true. If you look at the Barclaycard Platinum travel card details on moneysaving expert it specifically states:
Need-to-knows
There are no fees for spending or withdrawing cash abroad until 31 August 2022.
You don't get charged interest on spending or cash withdrawals abroad, provided you pay them off in full by the date shown on your statement.
Any cash withdrawals in pounds will be charged interest from the day you make them at 27.9% representative APR, so it's best to avoid.
The rate you'll get is set by Visa, which you can check here – it tends to be slightly lower than Mastercard's rate.
Make sure you pay off any purchases IN FULL or you'll be charged 18.9% interest, which'll quickly wipe the gain from this being fee free overseas.
I wanted to reply yesterday but could only post 3 times and I’d have to waste part of my day reading other posts I’ve no interest in to qualify for ‘basic user’ access which is a complete nonsense.
Anyway due to Monzo staff not having a clue what is happening I’ve cancelled my card and I’ll move on so a company that knows what they’re doing.
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I realised this but was unable to edit yesterday due being a new user. B’cars I believe is Visa. The FX rates are almost identical to m’card rates.
But Barclaycard Platinum charges a fee of 2.99% for foreign cash transactions according to the Ts&Cs
https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/files/terms-conditions-core-may2016.pdf
Edit: scroll down to Section 7 FEES and it’s shown under Account Usage Fees.
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To be fair, that’s only for GBP withdrawals though. So if you’re withdrawing foreign currency you’re ok.
I’ve double checked that here -
But regardless, there’s obviously downsides to using a credit cards for foreign transactions. Everyone who applies will have a credit check added to their history & plenty of people will end up paying interest.
You also won’t have Monzo’s live transaction notifications & the ability to freeze your card from the app (which helps protect you from fraud) & you won’t have the detailed transaction history, with automatic budgeting either, along with the rest of the Monzo features.
Some users will choose other options but the fee’s & charges obviously aren’t a zero sum game and if this sort of approach is adopted, I’d hope that not many people will be put off -
If you are put off, that’s fine too. Monzo obviously doesn’t want to subsidise limitless ATM withdrawals outside the UK & EU and it should only be a small portion of all potential users that will end up choosing alternatives because of a fee like this being introduced.
Yeah you might be right, but it says ‘non-sterling transaction’ so it’s pretty unclear.
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And we’re back to some users inadvertently subsidising the cleverer ones, and banks shafting their customers.
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Hi all,
I have just read the 2017 Monzo financial statement and I was particularly drawn to this one part
“Around 40% of the per-customer loss is due to international ATM usage outside the UK or EU, with a small minority of our user-base driving the majority of this cost. As a result, we will explore ways to reduce this cost in collaboration with our community – it will not be a profit-making exercise. UK and EU ATM usage costs us much less, and we aim to keep this free. We still believe foreign exchange at point-of-sale (in shops, restaurants and online) can be provided to customers for free.”
This leads me to believe that Monzo are looking to potentially scrap the ATM usage for customers that travel outside the EU, which could be a little problematic when travelling to some countries.
Perhaps a way of keeping this feature instead of removing it is to limit the yearly usage of free ATM usage to a limited amount per year outside of the EU? I wonder what other peoples thoughts on this are, because the idea of being able to withdraw money for no charge at ATM’s really appeals to me, because call me old fashioned, but I love to use a countries currency when I go abroad.
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Whilst nothing has been decided, I’m confident that Monzo will have a fair use policy for withdrawals outside the EU. In my opinion this will most likely involve revised daily/monthly/annual limits which would suit most holidaymakers but not regular and long-term travellers who will be required to cover Monzo’s costs over the revised withdrawal limits… or I maybe I’m just talking a load of tosh.
The fact that you love to use a country’s currency (while Monzo is paying the costs) but perhaps less willing to do so if you had to cover those costs, should bring home the reasoning behind Monzo taking some action to reduce these high costs incurred by a small minority.
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We’ve been discussing this too so I’ve moved your post here, to keep all of the conversation in one place. I hope that makes sense 
I was thinking of something along those lines too but I think it would be good if users could exceed the free limit, as long as they pay to cover the costs of doing so -
Do you have any more thoughts on how this could be managed?
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To me an annual limit makes the most sense(give maximum flexibility). Would be good to see the limit be varied by amount of ‘normal’ use too. In terms of day to day while abroad, how about a notification saying how much limit you have left and cost once over that
Having some limit based on a number of withdrawals would be unfair, with some ATM outside Europe charging £5 a withdrawal while those in Europe may be charging 50p, and mean those travelling in Europe are being limited in order to subsisize those with the time ans money to travel further afield.
It would be better to just say, Free in Europe, and for the rest of the world have a charge that will recoup most of the cost e.g. £3.99 per withdrawal
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Why not a fee to cover the whole cost?
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my logic was various machines charge £3, £4, £5 in Rest of World so it maybe simplest to charge an average.
otherwise have the user charged the actual amount levied by that machine, but I see issues there in that the user will not know how much that ATM will charge Monzo before they use it, such info certainly won’t appear on the ATM screen, and the technicalities of perhaps popping up with a dialogue in the app seeking agreement to pay the fee seems a hassle and would not work in a poor signal area
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The other issue is that some ATM’s don’t split the amount requested & the charge that they added, when they send the transaction details to Monzo. So Monzo would have then to work out what amount the user had withdrawn. That might not be impossible but if it is, I guess an average is the only option.
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Just one point to make Monzo
When deciding on your Foreign ATM fees, please remember that in a lot of non-EU countries, the user gets charged by the ATM operator e.g. In the US for example fees incurred for ATM withdrawals are approx. $3-$5 per withdrawal. Obviously an additional fee on top of this charged by Monzo would make it less attractive.
Less attractive compared to what? Or do you mean in general? I don’t see Monzo absorbing these fees when current accounts are introduced and user numbers go through the roof.
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I just mean less a attractive in general. If other features make up for it then that may be better overall.
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Time will tell. I believe that for the vast majority of users ATM withdrawals outside the EU are unlikely to change much. With current accounts come debit cards, and outlets that offer cashback at POS are going to become very attractive to many travellers 
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