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Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

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Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#61

Post by syx »

dunk010 wrote: post #56
syx wrote: post #19

I just found out about Monzo yesterday when I read an article regarding poor quality of Revolut customer service [1]. This banking app looks very promising, I would really like to try it but I'm in Dublin Ireland and here Revolut is basically the de facto of banking apps. How will they deal with this sort of competition? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20261823

That's a terrifying story in that link :-|

I know that's why I'm currently looking for a better alternative, but if no one uses Monzo here, I don't really see a reason to switch.

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#62

Post by krn »

Dayshine wrote: post #54
krn wrote: post #23

I wish Monzo was available in continental Europe as an alternative to Revolut before expanding to the US. As a product, I find Revolut to be much better thought-out offering for both, private customers[1] and businesses[2], but as a company I trust Monzo a way more. [1] https://www.revolut.com/our-pricing-plans [2] https://www.revolut.com/business-accounts-made-easy

They don't have FCSC protection, how is that a better thought-out offering for private customers? "We can just throw away your money and you have no recourse, trust us with your ~banking~ beyond banking"

> They don't have FCSC protection, how is that a better thought-out offering for private customers?

Revolut started out as a "prepaid debit card for paying abroad", not as "your main bank acccount", but is closing the gap quickly and should soon switch over its customers to an EU-licensed bank entity.

I find Revolut to be better than Monzo in terms of features and costs, but it's not suitable to be used as the main bank account yet because of the lack of protection.

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#63

Post by kurtisc »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #31
randomvectors wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where they actually bring value right? - Delivering a good banking product outside of the UK. Because as a UK customer I see no reason to switch after trying Monzo for a couple of months. Positives: - a nicer mobile banking app Negatives: - no credit cards and no option to top up using a credit card from another bank - no physical branches Everything else is comparable to most other banks in the UK. Which isn…

> - no physical branches Massive positive for me. I've never had a good experience going to a physical bank branch (if they're ever even open), and now I'll never have to go again

I agree. If a bank has physical branches to fall back on, they can squander the online/phone story. This has happened with another bank I use which has a website with a broken account creation form and phone lines that just die.

For most banks, they might as well not have any branches as I can't get to them at a reasonable opening hour and they have no incentive to change that.

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#64

Post by martinald »

Jhsto wrote: post #58
wastedhours wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the EU market is 60% larger than the US, and Europeans are already used to paying for everything with debit cards. I'd argue the other side and say the EU isn't a single market when it comes to payment and banking culture. I'd also argue that there are large swathes of Europe that still don't have a card culture. My personal anecdata on chargebacks corroborates yours, but my own assumption is that the market for a…

I've needed cash more often in San Francisco than I've needed anywhere in Europe in the last 5 years. To my experience, even the smallest shops in most of Europe accept contactless payments, whereas in the States the smaller ones did not accept card payments for purchases under 2 (or sometimes even 20) dollars. I'd agree that the market for a fintech company in the States is much larger, but this is solely because it…

Depends where you are. UK/France/Spain, yes, Germany absolutely not. Even mid range restaurants are 50/50 if they'll take card. Not really sure what you are meant to do if they don't take card and you are settling a large table which costs more than your daily ATM limit...

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#65

Post by tommy5dollar »

andy_ppp wrote: post #22
frenchman99 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intentions can change.

Haha, that's ridiculous, I know for a fact they have had face to face meetings with RBS for example. I doubt they will sell while they are still growing, but they will sell.

They use RBS as a routing bank for international payments, so obviously they've had meetings with them

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#66

Post by martinald »

Scirra_Tom wrote: post #29
lordnacho wrote: post #12

The UK bank space could do with some fresh players. Currently I'm looking for a new bank for my business, because: 1) I need to have foreign currency accounts. My bank has them, but I'm unable to see the accounts when I log in. They've known about this for 4 months now, and I keep getting sent in circles by the Indian call centre. They've sent me to branch twice, with no coordination, the people in the branch can't h…

We use Barclays and have EUR and USD accounts with them which we can see online and make transfers/payments online with. Allows us to have a USD Amex, and do a lot of our Forex with Transferwise. Saved tens of thousands over the years on Forex with this method, and expensing some of our USD infrastructure costs on Amex helps as well. Last pain point for us is getting a USD account in USA so we can cashout Paypal USD…

Transferwise can give you a US ACH account with a USD balance which you can then convert and send. Not sure if that helps?

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#67

Post by matthewmacleod »

I know there's a bit of scepticism about Monzo in particular, but here's the deal from my perspective as a customer and crowdfunder: it's a straightforward banking service, and has a great app (which is where I do basically all banking anyway). That's basically it. Fee-free foreign transactions are a nice positive too, though I'm not that bothered.

Some of the larger banks have begun introducing features to compete – stuff like being able to freeze and re-order cards. So that's good. At the point it was introduced though, the experience was notably better than any other option.

For me as a customer, the main goal of a retail bank is to store my cash, make it accessible, keep it secure, and notify me about transactions – basically, keep out of the way as much as possible. It's good at that, better than any other bank I've used, and I think that simplicity is underrated.

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#68

Post by mojuba »

astannard wrote: post #36

I do like Monzo, they are one of the few startups I have invested in. I tend to personally use them for my fun money and still use my long time bank for paying the bills and getting my wages etc I transfer my monthly spending money to Monzo and when that runs out the fun stops.

Same here. Something still prevents me from taking Monzo and similar banks seriously and manage my entire income on their accounts, though can't say what it is.

Maybe it's the "you can't possibly trust a bank that's not even profitable" despite all the effort of cutting costs, e.g. no walk-in offices and so on. That, coupled with being "ethical" as a selling point somehow doesn't sound great in the context of banking.

Re: Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund

#70

Post by matthewmacleod »

krn wrote: post #23

I wish Monzo was available in continental Europe as an alternative to Revolut before expanding to the US. As a product, I find Revolut to be much better thought-out offering for both, private customers[1] and businesses[2], but as a company I trust Monzo a way more. [1] https://www.revolut.com/our-pricing-plans [2] https://www.revolut.com/business-accounts-made-easy

Aside from the obvious horror stories circulating about customer service and culture, I don't see Revolut's offering as more compelling at all. They seem to offer all that stuff that I don't want from a retail banking service – "instant access to 5 cryptocurrencies" or "overseas medical insurance" or "LoungeKey Pass access" are just distracting noise. Each to their own of course, but the thing that really attracted me to Monzo was the simplicity. I'm already nervous about the introduction of the "plus" offering.
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