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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

#51

Post by varispeed »

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 need to have an app to sign up to Starling.

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

#52

Post by danpalmer »

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.

UK banks work to an expectation of 0-3% margin. In Monzo's favour is that they don't have to operate a branch network, but then again they are small compared to the high street banks. There's just not a lot of money available in accounts, even accounting for using it for lending etc. Also bear in mind that while they can use deposits to fund some amount of lending, the amount they have to keep on hand, collateral, insurance (not sure if it's called that) with the Bank of England, etc, are all very heavily regulated so that they can't mess it up, which conversely means it's much harder to monetise than expected based on a basic understanding of fractional reserve banking.

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

#53

Post by mojuba »

Nextgrid wrote: post #49
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 K…

That's strange, I've used Revolut as my main account for years and never hit any limits. I suppose there's ATM withdrawal cap but I don't use cash much.

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

#54

Post by shantnutiwari »

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 gave up on Revolut after scandals about its CEO and financial shenanigans; and the many customer service nightmares.

In banking, boring is better

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

#55

Post by sethjr5rtfgh »

chrisseaton wrote: post #30
deeptote wrote: post #26

Given Monzo's hiring practices, I'm not sanguine about the future of this company. I myself went through their interview process not long ago and to say it lived up to the sentiment of the glassdoor reviews is putting it mildly. Several rounds, silly armchair-psychologist behavioral questions, and the interviewers made it blatant that they didn't want to be there. Did my last interview at 4pm one day, got rejected by…

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.

So let me ask you. Is the only reason that you're at Shopify that you couldn't get an offer from Google or Amazon?

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

#56

Post by willyt »

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/

I was surprised by this and it turns out its a bit of a misrepresentation as you get unlimited fee free withdrawals if you meet one of these criteria which, in the UK, pretty much anyone except a teenager with no job will meet:

At least £500 was paid into a Monzo account in your name over the last rolling 35-day period, and you have at least one active Direct Debit on the same account in the same period.

You’ve received a Department of Work and Pensions or a Department for Communities’ payment into a Monzo account in your name over the last rolling 35-day period.

You’ve received a student loan payment into a Monzo account in your name over the last rolling 8-month period.

You’re sharing a Monzo Joint Account with someone who has done at least one of the above.

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

#57

Post by karmakaze »

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…

Just noticed the double entendre in 'we value your privacy'--your private data provides the $value.

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

#58

Post by lysergia »

I downloaded Monzo on the Play store and installed it. During registration it asked for personal data like my address etc then proceeded to tell me it’s a UK only app. I was shocked. I’m in the EEA and thought I could use the app. It should be clear in the app’s description that it’s a UK only affair. I imagine this has happened to many more people other than me.

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

#59

Post by deeptote »

chrisseaton wrote: post #30
deeptote wrote: post #26

Given Monzo's hiring practices, I'm not sanguine about the future of this company. I myself went through their interview process not long ago and to say it lived up to the sentiment of the glassdoor reviews is putting it mildly. Several rounds, silly armchair-psychologist behavioral questions, and the interviewers made it blatant that they didn't want to be there. Did my last interview at 4pm one day, got rejected by…

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.

I turned down my offers from Google at Amazon because I value WLB and being able to continue with my freelance work and content creation. I figured working at a bank would be congruent with this sentiment.

You do cool work, btw. Just be careful, Shopify seems to be real layoff happy. I've even had some of your staff engineers hmu on Linkedin for a position and I've been having to say thanks but no thanks.

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

#60

Post by [deleted] »

deeptote wrote: post #26

Given Monzo's hiring practices, I'm not sanguine about the future of this company. I myself went through their interview process not long ago and to say it lived up to the sentiment of the glassdoor reviews is putting it mildly. Several rounds, silly armchair-psychologist behavioral questions, and the interviewers made it blatant that they didn't want to be there. Did my last interview at 4pm one day, got rejected by…

[deleted]
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