Sunday 9 September 2018

Monzo: The Bank of the Future!

Hey everyone :)


I imagine when someone mentions "change banks" - you cringe - because there is so much work involved ... moving direct debits, transferring the remaining balance or telling your work your new account number and sort code.

I've was with my old bank about 12+ years and I was bored. I was paying around £12.50 a month (started off as £3.50) just to have an overdraft, warranty guarantee, card protection and mobile phone cover. I rarely used the overdraft (it was just there for emergencies), I didn't use the warranty guarantee or the card protection and from what I heard the mobile phone cover was the worst and getting them to do anything when your phone broke was next to impossible. So I asked myself - "why am I paying £12.50?".

I found Monzo in an unusual way - in that I happened to come across them in one of their new employee's YouTube videos "My first day at Monzo". I was intrigued and started googling them and checking out the reviews on the app store and was really impressed. I found it odd you could open an actual bank account on an iPhone app as I'd never heard of such a thing!!

What drew me to Monzo was the sleek, cool looking app. It's available on iPhone or Android!. I love that it pulls the logos from companies and shows them next to the transactions. Whenever you buy anything you get a notification instantly (signal permitting) to tell you and it also puts it in a certain category to help you track spending. It also lists your direct debits and shows when they come off and shows these in a "committed spending" category. You can also help with testing on Monzo Labs for anything they are doing - I'm currently using the "bill splitting" feature which is really good and lets you split transactions and request the other half from other people.

I applied for the account while sitting on my bed. Entered the usual sign up stuff (name, date of birth, address etc). Took a picture of my passport and then recorded myself saying "Hi, my name is John and I want a Monzo account"... then three days later I had a lovely hot coral card in the post :)

Some people might be a but dubious and worried about an online/app based bank however it is covered with the FSCS up to £85,000 for current accounts and £170,000 for join accounts. Being online/app based they do not have physical branches so you can't visit. They do have online chat and can call them if you have issues.

They do also have their own forum/community where you can chat and talk about Monzo-related issues (and some non-Monzo related issues). I just joined a few days ago and I've learnt a lot more about banking and Monzo than I did before.

Overall I am really impressed and happy with the bank and I'm glad I switched over. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new bank. They do offer the current account switch service or if you like to do things yourself - you can do it yourself at your own pace.

Let me know in the comments below if you have switched or use Monzo.





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