Monzo bank

Sounds awesome, but if there are no fees, how are they making money?
Currently it isn't (other UK banks offer free bank accounts as they make money through other means such as lending), though that's not surprising for a startup company.

There's a couple of articles on Monzo, their current operating losses and what they may do to start earning money:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/monzos-2017-annual-report-losses-jump-growth-accelerates-2017-7

http://www.cityam.com/267924/revealed-monzos-annual-report-and-6-things-we-learned
 
I have a golden ticket if anyone wants to jump the queue and get their Monzo current account (UK only obviously).

First person to PM me with their email address gets it, and I'll forward it on.
 
I've got a golden ticket for a current account too, in case anyone misses out on Chris' offer :)

They've recently launched monzo.me for everyone running the current account (same as paypal.me; request money, you can define a custom amount and a note or just give them the URL directly to input amount), and overdrafts are either in place or rolling out.

I've been using the Current Account since I first had the option to, only had a few DDs to swap so it didn't take much effort. It's been working very well for me :)


Fillip
 
Wait, how many people here are using Monzo? I had a golden ticket, but I accidentally deleted it. I can get it back if anyone needs it though.

Liam
 
Meh, they'll probably just sell your details and spending habits to advertisers :p
No. They make money via overdrafts, and partnerships with other companies (without giving them your personal data).

For instance, they are partnered with an energy company called Bulb, which uses largely green energy (I believe it's 100% electricity but less for gas), and is cheaper than the big companies. So, if Monzo notices you're paying £150 a month for your energy, they may insert a suggestion into your bank feed that suggest you can save money by switching to Bulb.

(Personally, I save over £10/mo by using Bulb vs ScottishPower based on my latest estimates.)

In the future, they will also offer mortgages I believe, but at the moment they are still drinking the sweet VC milk with a dash of crowdfunded honey. I invested £10 because I wanted my debit card to say "Investor" :D


Fillip
 
Finally...

They've handled it incredibly poorly.
They were under NDAs not to discuss the progress of Apple Pay (so said the CEO across multiple threads @ their site), so I don't think it's fair to hold the Monzo team responsible for this.

It makes sense if you think about it; from Apple's point of view, Monzo isn't an established bank they had a working relationship with, so I can see Apple dragging their heels a bit in order to get Monzo to prove that it's a legitimate bank and not poisoned grain trying to infect the ecosystem.


Fillip
 
I'm not buying it.

Many other banks have announced their intention to provide Apple Pay before they actually did. Their CEO even admitted that it was handled poorly.

For a company that prides itself on being transparent, they were the exact opposite on this particular subject.
 
Many other banks have announced their intention to provide Apple Pay before they actually did.
Sure, but if I'm right in my assumption in my previous post, then the reason why those banks wouldn't be under an NDA is because they are old, established banks, or banks backed by multi-billion pound companies (e.g. Tesco).

Apple is a company that values their reputation more than most other companies, so in my mind it makes sense that Apple wouldn't want Monzo to say to tens of thousands of their customers, "sorry but this is Apple's fault, they are making us jump through a thousand hoops to prove we're not a mayfly bank, take your complaints to them."

Their CEO even admitted that it was handled poorly.
That to me sounds more like a PR move; swallowing your pride and assume the fault (even if it wasn't yours to begin with) to de-escalate a situation. Hasn't your support team ever done that, say "oh that's very strange that XF does this" even if they know full well the fault is PEBKAC? :P

For a company that prides itself on being transparent, they were the exact opposite on this particular subject.
To be fair, NDAs are literally there to restrict transparency :P


Fillip
 
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/17/monzo-apple-pay/
The upstart bank, which usually makes a virtue of its community-driven approach and transparency hasn’t been able to say (or even fully acknowledge that the feature was coming), likely because Apple imposes strict rules on the ways its partners communicate working with the tech giant. And when you sign an NDA with Apple it’s not untypical for it to stipulate that you don’t talk about said NDA.

Looks like I'm not the only one who believes that the reason for the delay and the lack of transparency was an NDA :)


Fillip
 
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