There are no plans to introduce a monthly fee for the prepay or current account so that issue is currently irrelevant.
The FD Regular Saver account is not all its cracked up to be. You can only save up to £300 a month, maximum 12 months, and the interest earned on £3600 is less than £100:
http://www1.firstdirect.com/1/2/savings-and-investments/savings/regular-saver-account#product-info
I pay £5/ month with my current legacy account and I’m a student. I think given how much interest I earn with it that fee is negligible really. I don’t use my overdraft either, I see no point for it. I get a couple of free international transfers which I much prefer.
On a side note if Monzo brought in a monthly fee (which they aren’t planning to) I think it wouldn’t be fair to users who don’t use ATMs overseas. Costs should just be passed on right to the user instead of trying to distribute evenly across the board. I would prefer to pay a one-off fee for a month or something to use ATMs overseas when it was first brought up, but it looks like it’s not going down that route.
Personally, I’d possibly not use Monzo anymore if they introduced a fee for using the card abroad.
This was one of the (many) advertised USPs that drew me to Monzo in the first place - possibly the most pushed selling point, actually - so to introduce a fee for this functionality would feel very much like a bait and switch to me, and not in keeping with way Monzo have promoted themselves to date (ie very good customer service and openness/transparency).
I understand that they are trying to recover/offset fees that they are encountering by proposing this, but as has been mentioned a few times it is a small minority of people “abusing the system” that are causing these fees. Why does everyone have to suffer for the actions of the few?
I ditched my account with Revolut when they introduced the 2% fees for cash withdrawals over £200/month, I don’t want to leave my Monzo account too, but may well do given the points above.
Hopefully they can find a way of recouping the costs by targeting the people creating huge fees and not the occasional, low-level user.
But you just select to be charged in euros and let MasterCard define the rate. 
That’s why they’re trying to find a balance that puts the costs onto those who use the feature the most.
How do you define " use the feature the most" though?
Someone who makes 2 foreign ATM withdrawals a month? Someone backpacking off the beaten trail? Someone using their card while on holiday in Thailand where cash is king?
The best solution IMHO is a monthly withdrawal limit of say 2 or 3 transactions. Not cash amount transactions, simply per ATM transaction. Over that limit then charge them.
Yes exactly.
Maybe there is some way to incentivise positively against withdrawing cash abroad, as well as some penalty scheme.
I’d need to see all the Monzo data to answer that properly. I can’t remember the numbers they put up on screen but it’s something like 12% of users account for 90% of the costs. Something like that, don’t quote me.
Whilst I’ve rarely withdrawn cash with my Monzo card, 2-3 transactions a month seems pretty low.
I think it’s something more like 14% account for 86% or something similar, although the point is broadly similar.
I guess 1 in 10 is quite a few people when you’ve got 350k cards out there but it’s still not a majority. I wonder if it’s possible for someone to share the slides from the CA rollout events.
This was also the reason I joined Monzo, I was complaining about all the fees abroad and a friend suggested Monzo, I wouldn’t have joined otherwise.
Now I see that there are also many other benefits of Monzo so I would definitely keep using them but it would be less satisfactory.
The below reply from Ian was a response to this post -
I think you may be right about charging something for ATM withdrawals - in Europe it is generally a choice to use ATMs for cash withdrawals rather than POS terminals - and as Starling scale up as Monzo has done they will face the same ‘problems’ of costs - it will be good for the user as long as Starling can afford to continue it - when they reach significant numbers like Monzo they will start charging / limiting withdrawals more than their present limits as well
Actually, as Starling will effectively be the last bank giving away free ATM withdrawals, I think they’ll face a worse problem. Travellers will flock to their account as they will have no other provider to spread the cost. I wonder how quickly Starling will buckle.
They are currently signing up thousands of users each week and when Anne was talking about their European expansion and long term plans envisaged retaining free ATM use in Europe. Though I can see a Monese-esque system of X number of withdrawals per month free then a charge kick in.
Ive no idea how many users Starling are signing up at all - I agree all banks realise where they are losing money with "free offers’ and all will control them eventually or go bust - I think Tom has mentioned European ATM costs are significantly cheaper than RoW so again nothing has been decided yet 
Don’t get me wrong. I’m looking forward to switching but … I can see why people are showing concerns…no interest rates…ATM charges…higher overdraft fees. All things competitors are offering coupled with an almost grinding halt last week to CA openings.
Personally for me, EU withdrawals are important. Even if it was just one free one per trip when I could get the cash I need for the whole weekend. I use POS wherever I can.
I still expect to move to Monzo when I can, but the shine has worn a bit.
Just my two cents
Tom Blom has address all your points in the past. No interest – Monzo aims to be more than just a bank account, more of a financial hub, and will add value to your financial life rather than interest payments, by making it seamless to invest in services which provide capital growth. ATM charges – these are expected to remain free/subsidised in UK and EU. Worldwide Monzo will make no profit but the cost will be charged to users under fair use policy. Higher overdraft fees – overdrafts are one of Monzo’s few ways of making a profit, and Monzo has never aimed to be the cheapest, but rather expects to be in the cheapest quartile. Current accounts target – all accounts opened by end of the year, all being well and therefore weekly figures will fluctuate.
Getting foreign cashback would be a good way to avoid a lot of these charges?