Way too expensive and not competitive at all with other packaged accounts from traditional banks.
Nationwide, for example, offers much better value.
It seems like a bandwagon-jumping move to get a Monzo metal card, when Curve and Revolut have offered this for a long time already.
Personally, I’m not impressed.
The same features as well. 
On point article in The Times today: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/just-grow-up-monzo-youre-a-bank-not-our-new-best-friend-cx0xz0tkd
Just grow up, Monzo. You’re a bank, not our new best friend
If they have, the app-based bank has no doubt achieved its marketing objective. It has been great at creating a lifestyle brand and fostering a relationship with its customers by — shock, horror — giving them respect and inviting trust.
This is opposed to the usual bank approach, where they do their thing and you like it or lump it.
Now, though, Monzo may be wishing that it had not been so successful at nurturing this special relationship because it badly needs money. And it’s ever so awkward making cash from your friends.
This week the bank launched its Monzo Premium account, yours for a mere £15 a month. For this you get a metallic card that apparently costs £50 to make, travel insurance and access to airport lounges (are you starting to spot the obvious flaw?).
There’s even mobile phone insurance, which feels very 2013 for a bank that is so on-trend. (Everyone worked out how useless mobile cover was some years ago now).
There is a respectable interest rate of 1.5 per cent, but it is capped to balances of up to £2,000, meaning that you can earn a maximum of £30 a year in interest.
The mobile phone insurance comes with a £75 excess and the travel insurance that you almost certainly won’t be using anytime soon has an excess of £50.
Then there is a minimum six-month term for the account; you must commit £90 to join — half of the £180 yearly cost — and if you cancel within six months you’ll owe Monzo £50 for that metallic card.
Good grief. While we expect to be flogged this kind of nakedly commercial product from high street banks such as Barclays, it’s harder to accept from a company that has spent years telling us how much it cares about its customers and about doing right by them.
Even if you haven’t spent millions marketing yourself as a human-speaking and feeling bank, I’m at a loss to understand the rationale behind launching an expensive account that peddles travel insurance, mid-recession, with many places mid-lockdown. What on earth is Monzo thinking?
I suspect that rather than being an issue of judgment, however, financial pressures are narrowing Monzo’s options. In its annual report in July the fintech unicorn, which was valued at more than £2 billion last year despite not having made a penny in profit, showed losses of £113.8 million in 2019-20, more than double its losses in the previous financial year.
Its auditor, EY, said that there was “significant doubt” about the bank’s ability to operate as a going concern.
Monzo needs to navigate a tricky middle ground between making money, but not betraying its customers’ trust, a balance Barclays has lost, to judge from my experience over the years.
Banking was ripe for a shake-up, and Monzo certainly did this with clever tools on its app, such as allowing people to siphon money into saving pots. It also found a way to make signing up for an account fast and secure.
But the older banks have caught up and have adopted many of these features. Monzo should be flattered by the way they have all imitated it, but it has left the digital bank in a quandry.
It is realising that, while it is cool to be young and disruptive, if you want to make money you have to behave like a grown-up. So it finds itself having to imitate the ideas of the dinosaurs of its industry, even if it means launching a rotten packaged account.
Monzo should not aim to be our friend, but a company we trust — and that means ditching the account that is clearly a bad deal and being a bit less lifestyle and a bit more bank.
Lost your fancy new Monzo card? That’ll cost you.
It’s pretty harsh. 
That’s interesting. Which other banks have (automated) saving pots?
Many banks have roundups.
The issue is that in most cases this is a hidden feature.
We saw this in Germany even before Monzo was a bank.
I know Lloyds (and their other brands) have had it for ages.
TSB do too (probably as their IT was originally inherited from Lloyds).
Except for the Fintechs more recently adding it, I don’t think any other U.K. banks offer the feature?
My Nationwide account has a section at the top which shows how much I could have saved from spare change roundups 
Still undecided if I actually want to set it up!
I forgot about Nationwide!
I think they may have added it fairy recently (within the last few years) as a response to the fintech challengers.
Personally, I leave it off on all my accounts because I rarely use my debit cards anyway (I always think it’s better to use a credit card, for rewards and Section 75 protection, if you can trust yourself to be disciplined with it).
Edit: I think it may also be possible with Metro Bank (not sure, though).
Never activated mine either as I don’t use my Nationwide debit card at all 
Haha my Nationwide account is pretty much just a backup for the occasional time I go to buy something with Monzo/ Starling and realise there’s no money on there 
Any thoughts on this? https://community.monzo.com/t/the-boden-blomfield-saga
It is a good read of one side of the story.
Is it totally factually correct?
Cannot see Tom stooping to the levels of releasing his own book with tell-tale stories of past collaborations.
But then, I don’t know Tom 
For cooking tips though, I recommend watching Kitchen Starter Pack on the BBC iPlayer 
This is what I don’t get. What’s Boden trying to achieve? Tell-tale nonsense is not a good look on anyone and doesn’t sit well with Starling’s “we’re a proper bank” approach.
I cannot see what she is trying to achieve.
Starling are going well, in my opinion, and Tom has taken very back seat at Monzo, so what is to be gained??
My whole Twitter is people saying they can’t wait to read the book…
I see it more like the last big push to send Monzo down.
Killing off a rival? If it’s seen as her just getting revenge, I think it’ll damage Starling as well
Do you think most Monzo customers (or, more especially, potential Monzo customers) know or care who Boden or Blomfield are?
No,
I think Monzo is going down, so there isn’t a better time to facilitate that.
No matter what competitors have, it’s time to fire that. 