You are losing out by cancelling the top up option!

Banks that aren’t direct participants in the Faster Payments Scheme are often far from instant. I used to have a current account with Norwich & Peterborough BS, and could only choose a banking day for a payment. So if setting on up (online) this evening, I’d have to choose tomorrow as the transfet date. Transfers then only happened at the beginning or end of the day (depending when you set it up). As @anon44204028 says, this could lead to multiple days if a long weekend is involved.

I think these banks essentially have to transfer the money to another bank (eg HSBC) and then that bank dies the FPS transfers. I guess smaller banks also have less IT spend, so probably work with older batch-based systems?

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The card top up feature is also useful for new immigrants etc. If you have time to plan a SCT transfer by SEPA to the UK (to an account with an IBAN) it does take a few days, however if you need money urgently (say you are stranded with a broken down car) you can do a card top up with your EU bank card and have the funds available almost immediately. With no IBAN or incomming SCT at Monzo it makes card top up currently the only option for some.

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@anon44204028 Fair point! As mentioned above though, why can’t Monzo.me be used? Surely the functionality is similar, if not the same? :credit_card:

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I do like this idea, but I think we would rather keep it free and let people use it in dire emergencies with approval from customer support. Obviously this wouldn’t be sustainable if it’s abused.

We didn’t make any profit on foreign ATM withdrawals last time I checked… any proceeds are used to cover the allowance for other people.

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11 posts were merged into an existing topic: Monzo - ATM fee chat

So…

Other ways to make people use bank transfers to add funds rather then card (including monzo.me). Any more ideas?

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  • Add a delay as to how quick funds are made available via top ups? Say 4 hours? This would make people use FPS as it’s quicker.

  • limit them to only new customers as a help to get started for a few weeks.

  • create a similar limit to non UK ATM withdrawals

  • get rid of it all together

  • charge the exact fee required to top up

There’s a lot of different options.

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and before @j06 says we should not be discussing non UK ATM withdrawals, I think this suggestion is a reasonable one

Can anyone charge a fee for accepting a debit or credit card now?

Good point! Not sure…

There is a difference between the European regulations and their enactment in this member state by way of our domestic legislation. If the UK law specifies restrictions for certain named card schemes such as Mastercard, Visa, and maybe Amex, it could be the case that a fee could be charged for Discover, JCB, CB, Union Pay etc!

The ability to trigger a transfer from my other banks from within my monzo account is what I am waiting for.

I don’t have other banking apps on my phone.

I currently do a transfer online at the start of the month, then would use top up if I would need more than that quickly.

That would probably mean a direct debit to your other bank account, direct debits are not instantaeous so either you wait for money to arrive or Monzo take a risk that you don’t have the money when the direct debit is taken and you have spent the money in your Monzo account.

Or open banking :wink:

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Yup, does anyone do that yet?

Simon mentioned it here:

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Multiple days? Can’t you transfer using FPS? I think it’s required by FPS to send money within 2 hours.

My experience with FPS however is often instant. The only odd times FPS is delayed is due to outage or in transferring a huge sum of money, for which case it’s probably for fraud prevention…

The maximum permissible time is not within 2 hours but by the end of the next banking day under the full terms of the scheme.

Those transactions that tend to be instant are between the limited number of full participants listed on their website, transactions where one or both of the financial institutions involved are not full participant members will take longer.

Instant transactions are also only possible where both parties operate 24/7, where one or both of the banks, building societies or credit unions involved does not process transactions in evenings or weekends this will delay any transaction transmission or reception until banking hours reopen at the institutions involved.

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Also, it looks like only (?) direct participants can send instant FPS. I might be wrong, but I remember reading something where Starling said that they were the only direct participant offering real-time FPS agency services.

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Recently there have been a few new additions to the direct participant members list, Clear Bank and Transferwise being the most notable. Transferwise being the first non-Bank, i.e. EMI, to join.

Starling is a DCSP rather than DCNSP so they can fully utilise FPS.

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