Will Monzo survive?

I’m using the easy pots, I mean these accounts https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-regular-savings-accounts/#saving

@HughWells

To add to what @JuanML says, Monzo should perhaps invite Coventry Building Society to offer their regular savings account in the Monzo savings marketplace. Coventry BS seem open to being part of a savings marketplace as they are already in HL’s marketplace, albeit only their easy account account.

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Perhaps I expressed myself badly.

If Monzo messes up my account, I can’t feed my child, I can’t get to work and I can’t pay my bills. I work in the health service and don’t earn enough to have access to much credit. I like Monzo because other features work well for me, but the risk of not having access to my money is perhaps more significant than people who have access to credit and other accounts.

I want to believe Monzo can work for me and have had my account for a couple of years so no to the fraudster and other comments, but I am concerned. I need access to my money. Monzo would work better for me if I could swap my salary to it but the latest events have meant I don’t feel safe doing so

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I would never go back to my legacy bank. I got a new phone and i can’t even open my legacy bank app (I kept a small savings account open just to be able to pay in cheques); it’s now saying I need to call a number as none of the methods they allow will work, and no doubt this will mean half an hour on the phone trying to explain everything. I’m actually going to open up a MetroBank account rather than stay with my big 4 legacy bank account as the effort with it all is just too much.

With Monzo, I have transferred random amounts of savings between different external savings accounts, using Monzo as a bridging account (external to Monzo to external). Some amounts have been £5,000, others £10,000. I did that because I moved from Skipton to Marcus and Marcus to Freetrade. I have not had Monzo close my account because it hasn’t flagged as I use it legitimately and my money comes from legitimate sources.

Equally, everyone should have savings enough to cover a months salary/bills, and at best 6 months plus, not saved at your main bank. You should also have a second bank account in case you lose your bank card/account/Northern Rock happens.

I do that and I have never even had issues with any of the banks I have ever used in 34 years.

Famous last words! :flushed:

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I don’t think that’s fair, people other than fraudsters have children and have genuine concerns about all aspects of their finances, especially when they’re on a low wage

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That’s because I am fearful. I literally got everything ready to transfer last month and decided it might be too close to payday so waited.

Anyway. The reason I commented here was because Monzo said it was the place to feedback. I completely understand others have a different experience. I hope by commenting it will add to others voices saying the same thing and result in Monzo improving customer service and processes when there are problems with accounts. If other banks can do it I’m sure Monzo can - as others have said, it’s about what they choose to prioritise.

If they do I’ll reconsider until then I’ll go back to using it as I did when it was a pre-pay. Fingers crossed the changes happen soon.

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That smacks of a populist response designed to attract pro-Monzo likes. @Rat_au_van has it right.

I’d be fearful if the default response to posts like @S3rentious’ were those such as yours.

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What MasterCard issue are you having? I’m not aware of any issues recently

A week ago I got a message saying some payments had been taken twice and I was one of the customers affected. I went through my statements but couldn’t find them so I’ve been chasing it.

Yesterday after said chasing I found out refunds I received at the beginning of the month and was expecting have been marked as given to me in error. This means they may take them and then I would have to contact the retailer again to get the refunds reissued. The conversation seemed to be that a specialist had looked at the refunds and decided because they were for the same amount they were given in error.

So this was a problem with the retailer and they might (or might not) take them again?

Unfortunately it sounds like this is on the retailer. If they’re having a problem there’s no real way monzo know which exact payments are affected so are just warning that certain things might be affected and Monzo are just being proactive in informing you

Yes. The problem is the bit where Monzo’s specialist marked them as errors incorrectly. Monzo included me in that group incorrectly as no payments had been taken twice and the refunds were correct. These things happen but the errors by the Monzo specialist have created problems that weren’t there.

I can see how it’s annoying but I presume they had no way of knowing you weren’t included in that group. If it had been an incorrect refund which the retailer had then claimed back it would leave you out of pocket unexpectedly, at least this way you know the refund was accurate and you don’t have to worry

Pity you had to chase it for more information though

To me those issues are not important. Most of the big banks already don’t offer branches for paying in cash anylonger. I have a back up account with Barclays which offer all those missing bank services

I don’t know. The original message said that payments had been taken twice but that was not the case at all. When they eventually escalated it they were concerned that I had been refunded twice so it was a very incoherent experience.

Anyway, I’m hoping they’ll resolve it eventually as they’ve now escalated it for the third time.

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While it would indeed be good if everyone had enough savings in case of a problem - in reality, this isn’t the case and many people thus suffer if they have any disruption to their banking services.

For example:

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I will happily make the suggestion to the savings squad :slight_smile:

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another for Coventry here. Agree with the other poster they are open to these partnerships as they do it with HL.

Competition isn’t so important, I don’t think, nor are individual features which change all the time anyway.

Tech firms need a strong active customer base and consistent growth to be successful and keep attracting investment, both of which Monzo has. You may not like their new features, but they are still growing relatively rapidly, so whether you like it or not, it’s still pretty successful.

There are obviously risks - the biggest one is probably a general crash / wobble that causes investment sources to dry up. Any company that is reliant on constant third party funding is at risk from this. It’s unlikely but always a possibility, until Monzo finds a way to hit net profitability (which I assume is a long way off).

Another risk, I’d think. would be a large negative gross margin, as then their rate of growth could potentially sink them. Monzo allegedly now has a positive gross margin (making about £5 per customer according to the FT) so that’s probably no longer a risk.

Overall I’d say likely to survive as startups go.

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In response to the question asked at the top of this thread - “Will Monzo survive?” - I certainly hope so. Over the past three and a half years, they have managed to shake up retail banking in the UK, offering new features and user experience, and a higher advocacy rate among their customers than any of the incumbents. Card freeze, real-time notifications and balance, pots, decent exchange rates, gambling blocks and 10-minute account opening are just some examples. This has led most of the other players across the industry to up their own game, and offer comparable features. This has been beneficial to banking customers across the board.

Monzo have continued to up their game, but as they’ve grown, the rollout of new features has slowed, and this has allowed their competitors to begin catching up.

My concern over whether Monzo will survive isn’t related to the recent issues reported on Watchdog. It relates to two other factors:

  1. Ahead of the last crowdfunding round, Monzo expressed confidence they had a clear idea about how they were going to become profitable. The recent experience with Monzo Plus - where, after a false start, they seemed to panic and rush several times into in a new direction without really taking the time to think things through - leads me to suspect that at least some of that confidence wasn’t well placed. If they’re unable to become profitable, they may need a closer alliance with another financial services institution.

  2. The increasing delays with customer service, where customer wait times seem to be getting longer and longer, lead me to conclude they’re having trouble scaling their model. Or else that their focus may be elsewhere - possibly on growing in the US.

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