A Budget Debit Card

Feedback & Ideas
1

Hey guys,

I hope you are well.

I just wanted to post this to hear what you think.

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback that we get daily is that the app is not fast enough. It seems there is a deep need to have real time notifications and a top experience when using Emma.

We have been thinking about this for a while and building a debit card linked to your Emma account is really not a problem for us, but involves a lot of costs. These are the main reasons why challenger banks are struggling and banks have a ton of fees.

Would you like to have a debit card linked to your Emma account that makes the experience 10x faster?

How much are you willing to pay for it?

At ÂŁ3/mo, we can make it work really well.

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2

Would this be similar to Monzo back in the Mondo days? A top up card for spending?

If there were some serious budgeting tools in it, I think ÂŁ3 a month is totally acceptable.

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3

Yes,

you top it up with Open Banking payments and use it to track budgeting faster.

We are not thinking about it as a replacement to a bank, but just a top up and spend.

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4

ÂŁ96/year if you want both Emma Pro & debit card?

5

Think there would need to be more to it. I don’t find the app slow. Maybe getting a % back on using the card or Pro for free for using. Pre paid debit cards are getting crowded of late. Maybe I don’t understand it’s point atm.

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6

It might be ÂŁ3/mo on its own or less if you subscribe (or nothing).

7

Yes, this was our reasoning.

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8

I agree with @TheMightySwordfish. Need a stronger USP than just “transactions will be reflected faster in the app”.

e.g. Curve allows you to synthetically have all your cards in one card (except Amex).

Or build in other types of incentives such as merchant rewards which you already have in the app, but an expanded version. This would likely require you to hire a few partnership managers to source those merchant deals (similar to Revolut)

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10

They all cost more or less the same, the interchange revenue is not enough to sustain the scheme.

11

Yes, we were thinking as an add on or on its own if you are not a subscriber.

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13

We already have the same deals. With the card, you can make them card linked, which is much better than transactional. :wink:

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14

Point taken :+1:. However we the users want more details than fintech competitors such as Revolut, so Emma has a competitive edge that would convince people to sign up

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15

I’m finding it hard to decide if I’d be interested.

I primarily use Monzo & Amex (more Amex for spending) so already get instant information about transactions in their apps. What I’m more interested in Emma is the ability to edit pending transactions. This isn’t a problem with Monzo transactions since they arrive in Emma in an editable state, and an Emma debit card doesn’t solve the issue for my Amex spending.

I’m perhaps not really the right customer for this. The right customer is perhaps someone who doesn’t do much credit card spending.

However if I was interested, it would probably be the combined Emma Pro & debit card price that would be the relevant price i’d be looking at. I think £96/year would be a hard sell to Monzo customers with Monzo Plus coming in at £60/year. The aggregation, budgeting and analysis features in Emma Pro are better then Monzo Plus, but Monzo Plus will improve over time in this regard.

Obbiously, might not be such a hard sell to customers of other banks.

16

Yes, we are not targeting these ones. The market is big enough. :slight_smile:

17

In terms of subscriptions, we are launching two new ones.

The card can fit in one of these or separate as an add on. :slight_smile:

18

I think having cashback can be a nice sell. I am not sure how multiple currencies could be useful, but we can do that too. :wink:

If you expand into investments, as we are doing, it might be worth to have a card to spend the money moved in Emma.

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20

We are launching Emma Plus in May (lower subscription) and Emma Ultimate in June (higher). :stuck_out_tongue:

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21

I don’t think I would use/pay for this. Monzo’s salary sort/direct debit management works best for me for all the heavy lifting, then daily spending on credit cards for cashback/to build credit score. I don’t know anyone that uses a prepaid cards anymore, but maybe that’s just me!

+1 again for some method of managing pending, solves the problem of ‘delays’ enough for me, realistically I don’t know under what circumstances you’d need to manage your budget instantaneously rather than a check daily or max a couple of times a day

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22

Yes, that was my thinking. eheh

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23

I agree with the comments above - I struggle to see the use case for me. I get notifications from my current account and credit cards, so if I really need to see them instantly, they are there.

Editing pending transactions however, I probably could use :slightly_smiling_face:

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