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How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

tomblomfield.com

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Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#41

Post by dazc »

varispeed wrote: post #23
rand49an wrote: post #11

Sadly closed my Monzo account down recently after applying for a joint account with my partner and being denied with no explanation (both long term users, good credit etc). Apparently a common story. Opened a Starling account and got one straight away. It's a shame because the Monzo user interface is miles better.

Starling is no better, you were just lucky. I found Starling customer service appalling. Basically "go somewhere else if you don't like it".

I have a monzo personal and business account and I haven't had any major issues. As a former Barclays customer, they'd have to be fairly terrible to be any worse though.

I did try an open a Starling account once but they claimed my phone number was already linked to an existing account, which I found strange and wasn't prepared to jump through the hoops required to prove otherwise.

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#42

Post by 55555 »

user_named wrote: post #14
danpalmer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short answer is that they don't really. UK retail banking is notoriously low margin, and all of the major banks struggle to make anything from their consumer businesses. Charging for bank accounts is not something the UK market accepts. They'll likely cover costs in the long term, and their business banking will probably do fine, but I suspect the valuations aren't justified. The main way that the major players m…

I find it hard to believe that they struggle to make money off bank accounts. It's an intentional top of funnel strategy to offer free accounts.

Go look up how much money they have in deposits. When I checked in 2017/18 they had like 87mm USD total. That’s a single UHNW account at a “real” bank. Maybe it would earn 1-2mm in annual profits from AUM to cover a dozen staff? Idk I’m not an expert.

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#43

Post by chrisseaton »

sonthonax wrote: post #38
chrisseaton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d you have offers from Google and Amazon then why are you interviewing at a place like Monzo? They can probably tell you’re both wasting your time so rejected you on that.

Because Monzo will pay more than Google or Amazon in the UK.

I didn't think anyone paid more than Google?

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#44

Post by 55555 »

blibble wrote: post #33
sksksk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Interchange fees (Monzo take ~1% of every card transaction) - Packaged account fees (Monzo Plus, Premium and business Pro) - Lending (Overdrafts, Personal Loans, Credit Card) - Interest on bank deposits

they also charge you to take your own money out and put your own money in(!!!) Cash withdrawal in pounds in the UK: First £250 in a rolling 30-day period free, 3% after that Cash deposit: £1 per deposit to pay in cash at any PayPoint source: https://monzo.com/legal/fee-information/

What the heck?

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#45

Post by dazc »

kieloo wrote: post #35
varispeed wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used Starling app and I couldn't make sense of statements. I think it's equally bad as Monzo. Also I kind of despise the idea that you have to have an app to access the account. After trying these "challenger" banks I am staying with my good old High Street bank where I can access my account from the web and it does not have any confusing bells and whistles.

I don’t know about Monzo but you can access your Starling account on the web.

You can access a monzo business account on the web to access statements and such. I believe they also have an emergency web access feature for personal accounts.

https://monzo.com/blog/2018/06/13/how-to-get-online-in-an-em...

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#46

Post by robertlagrant »

> First, a note about the context. We started the company in the UK in February 2015, when “digital banks” weren’t yet a popular idea. BankSimple had launched in 2012 with some big plans, but sold to BBVA in early 2014 with about 100,000 accounts, having struggled to raise sufficient funding to continue. N26 started development in late 2013, initially as a card for kids, while Revolut was founded a few months after Monzo, in April 2015.

Is it odd that the author, along with the rest of the founders, came from Starling Bank[1], a UK digital bank founded in 2014, and yet Starling Bank isn't mentioned?

Slightly less obvious, but still important, is the UK's first internet bank, Egg, was founded in 1998! [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monzo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_Banking

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#47

Post by drcongo »

rand49an wrote: post #11

Sadly closed my Monzo account down recently after applying for a joint account with my partner and being denied with no explanation (both long term users, good credit etc). Apparently a common story. Opened a Starling account and got one straight away. It's a shame because the Monzo user interface is miles better.

Monzo froze my account for over a year with no explanation and only released my money after I reported them to the financial ombudsman. Switched to Starling and couldn't be happier with the decision. Monzo's customer support is a clown car, Starling's is fast, responsive and professional.

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#48

Post by danpalmer »

stephen_g wrote: post #16
danpalmer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short answer is that they don't really. UK retail banking is notoriously low margin, and all of the major banks struggle to make anything from their consumer businesses. Charging for bank accounts is not something the UK market accepts. They'll likely cover costs in the long term, and their business banking will probably do fine, but I suspect the valuations aren't justified. The main way that the major players m…

Do they lend? That’s where basically all of a bank’s profits come from, deposits are just there mostly as low-cost liquidity (and because creating deposits and the flows of inter-bank transfers are all part of enabling lending to happen). So I’m always surprised that lending and credit isn’t the core strategy of these banks - there’s very little money to be made in fees…

There's not even that much to be made in most lending (by transactions). Lending through overdrafts doesn't make a lot as it's typically lending to customers who are least able to afford it.

Mortgages and credit cards are the big ones, and Monzo does neither. However I would like to see a credit card from Monzo.

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#49

Post by Nextgrid »

mojuba wrote: post #39

I was one of the early adopters. Monzo felt fresh and exciting back when it started, kind of like Google in its early days. But I later switched to Revolut and never looked back. I was driven purely by intuition and no particular reason. While trying to understand why, I thought it was probably because there was too much PR and fuzz around Monzo as an "ethical business" and little action. You don't just talk about be…

I wouldn't consider Revolut ethical though.

Revolut allowed people to open accounts immediately with no (or very soft) KYC but then had to limit (by law) the amount of money they could transact before passing stronger KYC. This led to a lot of people opening Revolut accounts, going abroad and ending up stranded with no access to their money once they've exhausted the initial limit, sometimes with no way to complete KYC at all if they didn't have the required documents on hand.

The ethical approach here would've been to prevent these people from opening accounts without initial full KYC or have strong & persistent warnings about the issue to dissuade people from going abroad with a limited account, but who cares about people being stranded if you can have "growth" instead?

Re: How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years

#50

Post by varispeed »

dazc wrote: post #45
kieloo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about Monzo but you can access your Starling account on the web.

You can access a monzo business account on the web to access statements and such. I believe they also have an emergency web access feature for personal accounts. https://monzo.com/blog/2018/06/13/how-to-get-online-in-an-em...

Monzo business account is very much useless as it isn't connected to SWIFT.
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