This is an example of us defaulting to what the majority of people will expect and understand 
There’s always an interesting line to walk between translating technical terms and making people more confused by coming up with a new term for something which is pretty well understood already.
Nice! Only a little over the UK average! Do you get the Ts&Cs Plain English Accredited or let your own drafting do the talking (so to speak)?
Also, as there is quite an extensive gap between 800/900 words and 20,000 - do you feel you miss out on some protections that you would like to have or as a challenger do you just skip the stuff you don’t need/ want and then iterate as and when you need those further protections?
Hey @hashbridge, that makes sense. I suppose my only thought on that point is that people understand the word “terms” as it is part of “terms and conditions”. At the end of the day, I suppose its more about consistency when it comes down to points like that. Thanks!
@hashbridge
I think you’ve made the Monzo Plus terms so simple it is now confusing:
Terms state:
As soon as you sign up to Monzo Plus, you’ll be able to withdraw up to £400 from cash machines abroad in any rolling 30-day period without any fees. After that, we’ll charge you 3% of the total amount you withdraw.
Monzo customers who don’t have Monzo Plus can withdraw up to £200 for free from cash machines abroad.
However from chat, this is only if you select the ‘travel money’ add-on.
Monzo â is also misleading as:
Cash withdrawal in foreign currency: First £400 in a 30 day period free, 3% after that
is only after the ‘travel money’ add-on.
Do you have a source for the average reading age in the UK? I was intrigued by how low it was so I had a quick Google and there seems to be a fair bit of conflicting information.
Seemed to me about 14-17% of adults had a reading age <16 from National Literacy Trust but I’d like to see more research if possible.
Ermm I don’t think I have a definitive source - National Literacy Trust breaks down the %s of all of the literacy “levels” and I think the vast majority are in levels 1, 2 and 3 so around 9-11 reading age.
It is crazy that even if it isn’t the average, that there is such a high proportion that low.
Wouldn’t the average reading age vary over time?
E.g. If in 2000 the average 12 year old could read to x standard, and in 2020 to y standard, it would be true to say that two different texts have a reading age of 12 - but that standard has changed over time.
Feels like there needs to be a better, non relative, measure?
That’s a good point, certainly the average reading age of a 12 year old would have been a lot lower in say the 1950s compared to today. However, I wonder what the general advancement in reading has been in “modern” education.
The Literacy Trust suggest that there are “levels” that correspond to a range of ages but they then also bulk this out with a generic description of what each level satisfies.
Either way I think from the data suggested it is pretty scary.
It’s a very imprecise science! I’d always take those numbers with a pinch of salt, and they do vary over time. (Which is why we tend to focus on readability rather than reading age.)
As for it being scary, I’d disagree. It isn’t a sign of declining ability, in fact UK (and global) literacy rates have been skyrocketing for over 100 years and show no signs of slowing down. Humans today are by far and away the most literate group who ever lived, because they spend all day writing.
What it signifies is that by the time people reach secondary school education – give or take a year – they mostly have the capacity to read and write pretty well.
Anything with a reading age of 16+ is just more complicated than it needs to be, and the writer hasn’t tried hard enough to make it simpler.
Hmm, that looks more like a problem with the content itself rather than the simplicity! It doesn’t look quite right to me either, will pass that on to the team.
Thanks for the great spot 
Hey Adam 
like Harry said, good spot!
You’re right, it’s not clear that some of the things in the Ts&Cs only apply if you’ve added them.
I’ve asked the team to do two things to fix this:
Move the core features to appear before the custom ones (the order’s a bit confusing at the moment)
Add ‘You’ll only get this custom feature if you choose to add it’ to each custom feature section
They should be able to update this very soon. Again, thanks for calling us up on it 
Very good point - I suppose you see the numbers and it just looks bad in a way when actually if all the tabloids, Ts&Cs and the like are below that age then what is being missed?
As long as those “reading age”/“readability” levels mean that everything can accurately put across the intention and then naturally for the business to feel protected there isn’t really a problem.
With regards to this, have you experienced any problems in “simplifying” some of the clauses in Ts&Cs? Was there anything that was particularly hard to simplify?
(Haven’t read the guide, but love end result.)
Just wanted to say I appreciate the human friendly approach taken with the newest policy updates; your copy writer is clear & succinct.
The attached PDF and side-by-side comparison of changes are a happy departure from how this is handled by other companies.