[HN Gopher] How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the earl...
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How we got customers to sign up to Monzo in the early years
Author : angristan
Score : 89 points
Date : 2022-08-08 08:36 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tomblomfield.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tomblomfield.com)
| finsubthrowaway wrote:
| Not the intended use case, but the monzo.me links are great for
| financial domination too.
|
| As a cash slave, it makes it very easy to send to UK-based cash
| masters from outside the UK.
| mojuba wrote:
| 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 being
| ethical or caring about the customers (most data collection
| companies say "we value your privacy"). You prove it by doing, by
| delivering an amazing product and customer support, and by
| showing how you are going to turn profitable. Revolut and other
| competitors talk less but you can see they are doing reasonable
| job on all fronts.
| nly wrote:
| The Revolut app is a hot mess though.
|
| Monzo have kept theirs clean l, focus and and useful.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Monzo's initial UI used to be amazing. I find their V2 UI
| terrible, and of course the various "growth & engagement"
| shenanigans don't help - feels more like a bullshit social
| media app than a tool that's supposed to hold & manage my
| money.
| antihero wrote:
| The Monzo app lags and chokes swiping between accounts on my
| brand new iPhone 13 Mini.
| nly wrote:
| Works fine on Android
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They are using native apps so 2 different codebases, that
| would explain why you're not experiencing iOS-specific
| bugs.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| 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?
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| See my sibling comment for a counterargument. I do agree with
| the warnings though.
| mojuba wrote:
| 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.
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| I gave up on Revolut after scandals about its CEO and financial
| shenanigans; and the many customer service nightmares.
|
| In banking, boring is better
| mojuba wrote:
| > In banking, boring is better
|
| Exactly, you don't want to hand your money to a fancy
| organization that experiments with its PR and god knows what
| it does behind the scenes.
|
| Never heard about the scandals though, do you have any links?
| oakesm9 wrote:
| I tried boring with TSB. Their botched IT migration which
| left with me with no access to money for a few days and
| seeing other customer full account details when I signed in
| online causes some to switch to Monzo. They're not perfect,
| and their app is getting noticeable worse for the
| fundamentals as they add more money making features like
| loans and flex, but I've still had no major issues in years.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| You want "boring" but modern, competent "boring" such as
| Starling. It's modern but otherwise boring code (a Java
| monolith if I remember correctly), a modern app and is
| backed by a profitable, sustainable business with no
| "growth & engagement" smell.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Just noticed the double entendre in 'we value your privacy'--
| your private data provides the $value.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| I would try Monzo, but all I get from them is
|
| > Unfortunately we can't offer you a Monzo account
|
| > We're afraid we can't go into more detail about why we can't
| offer you an account.
|
| > We assess every application using details you've given us,
| and any information we get from the credit reference agencies
| we use (Experian and TrnsUnion) or from anti-fraud services
| like Cifas.
|
| Starling is the same. As a debt-free UK resident without any UK
| driver's licenses, utility bills, benefit claims, gun
| certificates, electoral register or GP records, the only bank
| that is willing to do business with me is Revolut.
|
| Not having any credit history is becoming a barrier to access
| more and more services that require an identity check. While it
| is understandable that companies want to protect themselves
| from fraud, this trend is making it difficult for people who
| don't have a credit history to access basic services. This is
| creating a significant barrier for certain groups of people,
| and it is something that should be addressed. When it comes to
| providing essential services to those who fall through the
| cracks, Revolut may be more ethical than the other options.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| If you want another option, check out TransferWise - they
| should be able to open you an account as well.
| calcifer wrote:
| > the only bank that is willing to do business with me is
| Revolut.
|
| That's because Revolut isn't a UK bank. Until very recently
| (less than a year ago), it wasn't a bank at all anywhere.
| Unlike Monzo, Starling et al. (which are UK banks) Revolut is
| an "electronic money institution" and hence your balance
| isn't protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme
| (FSCS).
| nsteel wrote:
| I didn't realise this. Why would anyone accept this risk
| and use Revolut as anything more than a place for pocket
| money while abroad?!
| Nextgrid wrote:
| People who have no choice or don't know any better.
| raesene9 wrote:
| The problem of lacking credit history has been around for a
| long time, I remember getting a credit card, which I paid off
| in full every month, just to increase my credit score ~ 20
| years ago.
|
| For people without a good credit history in the UK there is
| meant to be "basic bank accounts" which don't require credit
| checking as they don't offer overdrafts
| (https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-
| money/banking/bas...)
|
| That said, you will still need proof of identity/address. If
| a bank is taking you on without those, I'd struggle to see
| how it's meeting KYC (Know your customer) requirements.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| As far as I know the aforementioned banks merely check for
| a credit bureau record (and absence of any fraud markers)
| to use for KYC as opposed to for _credit_ eligibility, so
| if he 's being rejected for those his problem is not
| _creditworthiness_ but the complete lack of CRA record. It
| 's unlikely he'll qualify for _any_ credit card with
| absolutely zero records.
|
| His best bet is to open an account at a brick & mortar bank
| which will be able to verify his identity using physical
| documents and not only skip the CRA check, but actually
| _create_ a CRA record (which can be a good or bad thing
| depending on your opinions regarding privacy). After a year
| or so, he should become eligible for those accounts
| accounts (if the lack of CRA record is truly what caused
| them to reject initially) and even qualify for a credit
| card if needed.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| Thank you for your insightful comment explaining how the
| CRA process works. I'm not interested in credit, but it
| is good to know that it takes a year merely to qualify
| for a score.
|
| Last year, I stuffed every document I owned into a folder
| and went to a brick & mortar bank to open an account. No
| dice. The customer adviser went through some kind of a
| decision tree and told me that my best bet is to apply
| for benefits if I am eligible, saying that I just need to
| show them some letter without claiming the benefit. It is
| absurd. If wearing an ankle tag for a month to prove my
| address was an option, I'd go with that.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > but it is good to know that it takes a year merely to
| qualify for a score.
|
| Technically it doesn't - banks leak your details to CRAs
| upon every major interaction (account application, etc)
| and regularly confirm them if they have a continued
| relationship with you (if you have an account open
| they'll typically report the status of the account every
| month).
|
| However other banks may still be suspicious of a brand
| new record and might want to wait a few months before
| trusting it (since if the record was created
| fraudulently, it will usually get discovered and
| rectified pretty early - if the record is there for a
| long time, either it's legit or the fraudster has done an
| above-average job). The "one year" number is purely
| arbitrary but feels fair to me, that's probably what I'd
| do if I was building such a system (though I'd also build
| an escape hatch to allow people to confirm identity
| differently without CRA scum being involved).
|
| Furthermore, in the UK there is no concept of "credit
| score". It's a myth perpetuated by the CRAs just so you
| obsess over that meaningless number that they can tweak
| every month to give you a reason to keep coming back and
| look at their "offers". In the UK, lenders get your raw
| report (aka identity, address history, recent credit
| applications and their status, open accounts, etc) and
| then make a decision internally based on their own
| algorithms.
| varispeed wrote:
| substation13 wrote:
| How do they make money?
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Interest on loaning your current account balance out.
| sksksk wrote:
| - 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
| blibble wrote:
| they also charge you to take your own money out and put your
| own money in(!!!) Cash withdrawal in pounds
| in the UK: First PS250 in a rolling 30-day period free, 3%
| after that Cash deposit: PS1 per deposit to pay in
| cash at any PayPoint
|
| source: https://monzo.com/legal/fee-information/
| willyt wrote:
| 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 PS500 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.
| blibble wrote:
| it's not misleading, it's true
|
| if you lose your job, you're now being charged 3% to pull
| your own money out
|
| (and regardless: they still charge you to deposit your
| own money, unheard of for retail customers)
| ascorbic wrote:
| The criteria seem to be mostly designed to ensure that
| people who aren't using it as their main account can't do
| things that cost Monzo lots of money. That said, if you
| want to deal mostly with cash then Monzo probably isn't
| for you, and I think they're ok with that.
| 55555 wrote:
| What the heck?
| danpalmer wrote:
| 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 make
| money is through things like mortgages, wealth management for
| the very wealthy, and through their investment banking arms.
|
| Starling is another startup bank, a main competitor to Monzo.
| While they're decidedly less "cool", they seem to have targeted
| business banking much more, and I suspect that's why they're
| now in a better position. Monzo went big on Monzo Plus and even
| on its ~3rd? iteration, it seems to have had a lacklustre
| reception. I'm Monzo user #13, about as onboard with the idea
| as I could be, and I find it unconvincing.
|
| Monzo have just launched Monzo Flex, an easy payment system
| like AfterPay/ClearPay/Klarna. I'd normally expect that to do
| well but it's about 2 years too late and going into a recession
| is probably not the right time. Hopefully it'll do well as we
| come out.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Starling makes money from business accounts (they pocket the
| interest on those, and that interest amounts to more
| considering business accounts keep a larger balance) and I
| believe also provides services to other payment companies,
| essentially SaaS-ing their tech.
|
| It's a shame because this is something that Monzo could've
| done just as well and there's absolutely a place (well, was -
| that's now taken by Starling) in the market for it. Natwest
| _still_ charges extra for a "next-gen" business account that
| allows multi-user access to a web UI, and I bet it's terrible
| - this is something a company can Monzo could've built in
| _days_ based on their existing modern tech at a time where
| there was nothing like it in the market.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Monzo do have good tech, but I've also heard that there is
| a "surprising amount of legacy tech" there as well. I'd
| interpret that as either they do too many re-writes of
| things, and/or they're perhaps not building at the level of
| quality that they should have been. They have some
| excellent engineers in the early team, but I've also seen a
| lot of very inexperienced people go there, so that in
| combination with a "move fast" mentality, will likely
| result in a lot of codebase issues and churn.
|
| Starling seem to have taken a "slow and steady wins the
| race" sort of approach, and had a bunch of experienced
| engineers build a boring old Java app. Nothing special but
| I'm not surprised that it is working out ok in the long
| run.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Monzo seems to have gone all-in on microservices (they
| have _thousands_ apparently), which sounds like an
| absolute nightmare.
| andrewingram wrote:
| One of their earliest engineers was apparently a bit of a
| microservices guru, so there's a good chance that at
| least they did it _well_ , in terms of mitigating the
| litany of common issues. Though I'm still skeptical as to
| whether it was actually a good idea.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Yes that is one of my concerns with their tech stack. The
| management overhead of that must be insane.
| raesene9 wrote:
| I've noticed that about Monzo. They were very early
| adopters of Kubernetes amongst other things, which
| surprised me as early Kubernetes was not exactly
| secure...
|
| Having seen some presentations about their tech. stack,
| it seems very clever and has interesting ideas, but I was
| worried that once the people who designed it had moved on
| , how maintainable would it be (coming from a banking
| background where I found that systems lived on for EVAR)
| dbbk wrote:
| Monzo does have business accounts... I have one. It's
| great.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They have them _now_ , long after Starling ate their
| lunch - my point was that they could've offered them
| _before_ Starling and probably made a killing (it would
| 've been the only option for a modern business bank
| account in the market back in those days).
| user_named wrote:
| 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.
| danpalmer wrote:
| 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.
| 55555 wrote:
| 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.
| ascorbic wrote:
| PS4.4 billion in Feb, so about 6bn USD.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1118161/customer-
| loans-a...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > I find it hard to believe that they struggle to make
| money off bank accounts.
|
| Why is that? Current accounts are a loss-leader for most
| (all?) legacy banks too, they're used to lure the customer
| in so they can then pitch revenue-generating products such
| as credit cards or mortgages.
| stephen_g wrote:
| 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...
| danpalmer wrote:
| 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.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Monzo does have Buy Now Pay Later now, for whatever
| that's worth.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They are very conservative with their lending. They do
| lend, but not much (relatively speaking), and in any case
| I'm not sure lending alone will satisfy their investor's
| expectations.
| nly wrote:
| I see plenty of people with blue Monzo+ cards.
|
| I think since app dominated baking became a thing a lot more
| people are paying for premium accounts.
|
| Imho they all offer poor value for money though
| rand49an wrote:
| 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.
| srmarm wrote:
| This mirrors my experience a couple of weeks back. Having come
| across many others with the same problem I almost wondered if
| it was a case of pretend to have a feature to gauge interest
| (I'm sure it wasn't - I hate those things!)
|
| I also ended up using starling instead - perfect really.
|
| While I like the Monzo travel bits when travelling I find bank
| accounts much of a muchness really for my basic needs so don't
| have any real loyalty.
| arranf wrote:
| For what it's worth I've had a joint account for years. It
| works fine but there are some wrinkles - mainly that it's not
| a first class citizen. Split the bill and other Monzo
| specific features only work with your individual account.
| drcongo wrote:
| 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.
| varispeed wrote:
| Starling is no better, you were just lucky. I found Starling
| customer service appalling. Basically "go somewhere else if you
| don't like it".
| dazc wrote:
| 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.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Well it might be true. They just haven't realised that
| there are only so many phone numbers, and they change
| hands.
| 3adawi wrote:
| I have this same issue - really weird - I have a joint account
| already with someone on my Starling and can't start a second
| one, anyone know another alternative I could use for a joint
| account?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > 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
| oakesm9 wrote:
| Before starting Monzo they attempted a hostile takeover of
| Starling but we're rebuffed by the founder. Tom took basically
| all The staff and started Monzo, so I can imagine he doesn't
| want to draw too much attention to it.
|
| Anne Boden's book is worth reading if your interested in the
| early history of digital first banks in the UK
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51007680
| ralferoo wrote:
| The irony is that Starling is consistently the better bank,
| from my perspective.
|
| I started off getting Monzo when it advertised itself as a
| pre-paid debit card and it's big selling point was free
| foreign ATM transactions. I never actually used it all that
| much (I've been with them about 5-6 years, and maybe done
| about PS1000 total foreign withdrawals).
|
| At some point when they introduced limits, there was a post
| on their forum comparing them to Starling, Revolut and N26
| and others. N26 was a bit of a hassle, but I got the other
| two just in case I needed more than the PS200 a month you
| were now allowed.
|
| Since then, the service at Monzo has steadily declined, as
| they decide to start charging fees for this that or the other
| than used to be free, adding more and more junk dressed up to
| look pretty, but every month or so the service gets degraded
| a little more somehow. An extra charge here. A restriction
| there. More in-app advertising for services I don't want,
| etc.
|
| And yet throughout that, Starling has continued to do
| everything you'd expect from a bank, and with the convenience
| of an online bank. Their app hasn't really changed at all in
| that time, and yet somehow it's still better than Monzo's.
| Simpler, sure, but certainly less annoying.
|
| It's telling that I've never felt comfortable trusting Monzo
| with my salary, because it always feels like it'll fold any
| moment, so I've always had my salary paid into a "real bank"
| and just have a standing order each month to transfer PS500 a
| month for monthly expenditure, but pay most bills directly
| from the old brick and mortar bank. I needed to keep that old
| account around anyway, because Monzo makes life impossible if
| you need occasionally to use cheques.
|
| And so, when I started a company and needed to choose a bank
| for my business account, it was a no brainer - Starling.
| oumua_don17 wrote:
| >> It's telling that I've never felt comfortable trusting
| Monzo with my salary, because it always feels like it'll
| fold any moment
|
| Can you elaborate more on this, the fold part?
|
| >> from the old brick and mortar bank
|
| Which such bank/s you recommend?
|
| PS: I have been in UK for quite a few years now and only
| use Monzo.
|
| Edit: typo and query
| raesene9 wrote:
| Of the "traditional" banks First Direct generally have
| quite a good reputation. I've used them for a while and
| they've been fine. Customer service is good on the
| occasions I use it and the product's been reliable.
|
| That said I'd be surprised to see a bank like Monzo just
| fold without warning. It's possible that one or more of
| the "challenger" banks won't last a long time, but the
| outcome there will most likely be them getting bought by
| someone else.
| heurisko wrote:
| > It's telling that I've never felt comfortable trusting
| Monzo with my salary, because it always feels like it'll
| fold any moment
|
| In which case you will be protected up to PS85,000 by the
| FSCS.
| blibble wrote:
| as long as you've got another account to pay it into?
|
| and don't mind being without your money for some time
|
| (personally I wouldn't have my salary paid into a bank
| that's losing even increasing sums of money)
| jonatron wrote:
| I thought the first internet bank was Smile
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(bank) , but it looks like
| the claim is "first fully digital bank".
| jtwigg wrote:
| Earlier this year my partner and I switched our joint account
| from Monzo to Starling simply because we both hated using the
| Monzo app. Navigating the app feels unnatural to us and probably
| due to how infrequently we use it, we never learnt to live with
| it. Last week I finally closed my personal Monzo account as I
| only used it for one small DD a month and much prefer the
| Starling and NatWest apps.
| varispeed wrote:
| 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.
| kieloo wrote:
| I don't know about Monzo but you can access your Starling
| account on the web.
| varispeed wrote:
| You need to have an app to sign up to Starling.
| dazc wrote:
| 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...
| varispeed wrote:
| Monzo business account is very much useless as it isn't
| connected to SWIFT.
| Cxckers wrote:
| I made the same switch due to Monzo refusing me and my partner
| a joint account. Starling had no issue with giving us one
| mojuba wrote:
| On a general note, referral rewards are not necessarily a good
| thing i.e. when you say "invite a friend and get $X". Turns out
| non-money rewards work better.
|
| A quote from [1]:
|
| > When money comes into play it switches us from 'social mode' to
| 'business transaction mode'. We become more selfish, distant,
| less helpful, and less willing to be helped.
|
| You don't even need research to back this, it seems obvious when
| you think about it.
|
| [1] https://tips.ariyh.com/p/non-money-referrals
| lysergia wrote:
| 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.
| ralphmelish wrote:
| It is not a simple app, it's a bank. Not sure how you expect to
| open a UK bank account not living in the UK...
|
| Edit: I've just checked the description in the Play Store and
| it says 'Open a full UK bank account'. Maybe that is new, but
| it is pretty clear.
| berdario wrote:
| Non-resident accounts exist (though they are generally more
| expensive), and several countries don't even require any
| proof of residence (i.e. you can open a bank account while on
| a tourist visa)
| ralphmelish wrote:
| I know they exist, but they are not the norm. They even
| call them 'international bank accounts' in most cases (I
| think HSBC calls it that, or Barclays). Most common bank
| accounts will require proof of address in the respective
| country. I don't think it is expected to specify all that
| in the app description.
| surfer7837 wrote:
| Kind of hard to determine if you're a UK tax resident without
| some details, no?
| Jamie9912 wrote:
| You don't need to be a UK tax resident to have a Monzo
| account. I have UK citizenship, but am not a resident or tax
| resident
| BillinghamJ wrote:
| FYI, I'm pretty sure they actually do require you to be a
| resident, though a lot of people get away with not updating
| their address
|
| https://monzo.com/help/legal-stuff/tax-residency-not-uk
| lysergia wrote:
| There's no mention of it being a strictly UK affair in the
| app description. I imagine 100s of people download it each
| day, fill in the form and then bail once they realize it's UK
| only.
| ralphmelish wrote:
| I've just checked the description in the Play Store and it
| says 'Open a full UK bank account'. Maybe that is new, but
| it is pretty clear.
| berdario wrote:
| That doesn't mean that it's closed to non-residents.
| nsteel wrote:
| Don't all UK banks require a UK address?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| But that's not something you'd expect a non-resident to
| know. Making account opening criteria transparent
| wouldn't hurt anything and would save everyone time.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Good old Monzo times.
|
| Sadly, in my opinion the company took on too much investment and
| was now bound to deliver tech-company returns with a product that
| fundamentally isn't compatible with them. This led them to become
| yet another bullshit "growth & engagement" operation and
| ultimately killed the appeal of the product, all while
| competitors such as Starling Bank stepped up their game and
| delivered a very similar product that is not only profitable but
| doesn't have those "growth & engagement" vibes because they
| didn't have the same pressure and could afford to take things
| slow.
| klelatti wrote:
| A bit ironic given Tom literally worked for Starling at the
| beginning. A bit odd that this doesn't get a mention.
| blibble wrote:
| yeah, as far as I'm aware the only reason Monzo exists is
| because of a falling out between Tom and the Starling CEO
|
| I don't know what really went on, but Starling's side was
| reported in the UK press:
| https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/starling-bank-boss-
| anne-b...
| fumblebee wrote:
| Steven Bartlett has a really insightful with Tom Blomfield
| about this [1], and then also with Starling CEO Anne Boden
| [2]. While I'm generally not a great fan of his podcast,
| these two I found to be fascinating.
|
| [1] https://podcasts.apple.com/dk/podcast/e86-monzo-ceo-on-
| death...
|
| [2] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e107-starling-
| bank-bui...
| klelatti wrote:
| Thanks - I read Anne Borden's book so will be interesting
| to hear Tom's side too.
| dazc wrote:
| I found Anne Boden a tad disingenuous, mentioning 'the
| book' at every opportunity. Tom sounded more genuine, to
| me.
| deeptote wrote:
| 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 8am next business day. I've gotten offers
| from Google, Amazon, etc so I know I interview well, not sure
| what happened there but really got the vibe that their employees
| are never quite sure if they're doing well, and management likes
| it that way.
|
| They're a bank struggling to market themselves as a tech company.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| 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.
| sethjr5rtfgh wrote:
| 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?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I did apply to Google before and didn't get an offer so yes
| I guess that is literally true.
| deeptote wrote:
| 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.
| sonthonax wrote:
| Because Monzo will pay more than Google or Amazon in the UK.
| shrikant wrote:
| This hasn't been the case in my experience interviewing at
| all of those three -- both Google and Amazon's comp for a
| similar role and level at Monzo were way higher.
|
| Edit: to clarify, I didn't actually end up interviewing at
| Monzo because the recruiter said no pretty much right away
| on hearing my salary ask.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I didn't think anyone paid more than Google?
| nly wrote:
| Facebook pay better than Google in London from what I've
| heard.
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