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I've been using Monzo for a few years now and also have some friends there.

I have to say the app is just amazing, none of the traditional banks even come close to what Monzo provide. There is nothing overly complex to it - but it just works. Shows you things you would expect a bank to be able to show you, for example the name of the shop where you made a purchase and it's location. Rather than some random name of a parent company.

Sending money to friends has also become so easy now, I make Monzo to Monzo payments on a weekly basis it just works.

I've heard they're great to work for too. Would be interested in working there myself one day.

> name of the shop where you made a purchase and it's location.

i would hope that this data can be obfuscated or hidden if the end user desires it.

Hidden from who though? The bank obviously needs to know the exact business because what if a dispute opens over the charge. And the end user presumably would like to check that they actually made the purchase so they will need to see the details.

I’m guessing they were considering the possibility of a curious spouse/partner looking at your records. Which to me seems far, far less likely to happen with an app-based transaction history than a traditional paper statement posted out to you.

If your spouse is checking your bank statements you're probably in an abusive relationship. Hiding things from them seems like a huge red flag in this respect, too (though I'll admit that perhaps gifts are a valid exception here).

You can do that with Revolut. I am not seeing that option in Monzo.

That's great to hear :-)

You can check out open jobs here - http://monzo.com/careers

Monzo was really great to use, and a step in the right direction for banks, so nice job with that! I ended up closing my account when you switched to being a 'proper' bank, but for the couple of months I used it, it was very good.

As for the jobs, fully remote would be ideal, but at least you're offering it at all :). London is such an expensive place, even spending 1 week out of 5 there would be £££.

I love Monzo for the instant payments between account holders. That said, since I stopped working in London I've barely used it - up north I don't run into many people that use Monzo.

>By the way, if you're in the EU, bunq is a similar mobile challenger bank but based in the Netherlands and serving all of SEPA (if you're in the Eurozone you can use them as your main bank; I live in a non-Euro EU country so hold an account just for the hell of it).

I've considered bunq but couldn't really make sense out of their monthly fee (at least for me) once compared to N26. At the moment I've got them as my main bank account and Revolut for exchanging money quickly with friends and family.

What was confusing about their monthly fee? I used to work for bunq so I can pass on the feedback.

Nothing was "confusing", but, again, IMHO the features provided don't really make sense under a monthly fee. They could have easily created a free basic account with those exacts same things and offer a pro upgrade for the "25 accounts" and related IBANs + joint accounts.

At first glance to me at least, it's not clear if there's actually only a "business" and a "premium" plans?

Does that mean that for individuals there's only a "premium" plan but not standard plan? So premium (with 25 accounts and three cards!) is actually the standard plan?

There's a "standard" free plan but it's enabled once, after the first month trial, you decide not to pay a monthly fee.

Once downgraded:

- All your cards will be deactivated. They will be reactivated if you decide to go back to Premium.

- All features exclusive to bunq Premium (such as Apple Pay and Android Tap & Pay) will be blocked.

- You won't be able to open new bunq bank accounts as long as you are using bunq Free.

- Your API keys will be deactivated.

- You will still have access to all your bunq bank accounts and will be able to send, receive and request money normally.

So it's not really a common "standard" plan if you ask me.

There is no feature comparison between Business and Premium.

I was under the understanding that the 9,99 would be all inclusive, but at the same time it seems there is a fee for "Paying a direct debit.", not sure what is comprised within that term, does that mean every time we pay with a card?

> but at the same time it seems there is a fee for "Paying a direct debit.", not sure what is comprised within that term, does that mean every time we pay with a card?

No - a "direct debit" in banking is where you give, e.g. Vodafone, your bank details and permission that they may debit your account once a month to pay your phone bill. For completeness, a "standing order" is similar - a monthly recurring payment to someone else.

The primary difference is that, with a direct debit, the company can change the amount to be paid each month - e.g. if you go over your plan and incur extra changes, they can just debit those from your account automatically.

You're running a business and don't know what a Direct Debit is?

Didn't know that term, English is not my first language.

That's the first time I've ever seen a per-direct-debit fee, it's quite unusual. The average person probably has 5-10 direct debits on their account, every month, for bill payments.

All business bank accounts in the NL include those transaction fees. Consumer ones (as in Premium in bunq) do not.

> By the way, if you're in the EU, bunq is a similar mobile challenger bank but based in the Netherlands and serving all of SEPA (if you're in the Eurozone you can use them as your main bank; I live in a non-Euro EU country so hold an account just for the hell of it).

is there a similar option for people who have citizenship of an EU country but are not physically present in EU?

Unfortunately, no. Banking is tied to residence, not citizenship.

Pretty much every country has at least some options for opening a bank account for non-residents. TSB has an account for EU, non-UK residents for instance, that gives you a normal UK checking account with a visa card:

https://www.tsb.co.uk/current-accounts/faqs/opening-a-curren...

Yup, but you have to be elsewhere in the EU. You can have a non-resident bank account pretty much anywhere, but you either have to visit the bank's branch office, or be trusted in any other way (residing in a jurisdiction that's trusted, or be a bank's customer elsewhere)

It's also tied to citizenship. As an US citizen, I'm not allowed to use bunq (or many other banks) even though I live in The Netherlands.

The US is an exception

Not citizenship, but tax law. The US is the only major country in the world which taxes its citizens when they live abroad, so EU fcompanies need to know if you're one, so they can report to the IRS and tax you properly, or handle their anti money-laundering responsibilities.

Yupp. It's more a case of firms not wanting the hassle, so they usually just deny service to US citizens. Apparently transferwise has a similar issue, I'm not aware as luckily I'm not a US citizen.

Bunq was happy to open an account for me (US citizen). They asked for my US SSN and Dutch BSN at the time of account opening.

Maybe it's changed recently - I'll look into it again.

Damn, so if you move away from the UK you technically shouldn't still possess a UK bank account?

Not necessarily.

If you tax residence is outside of the UK it will generate more paperwork for the bank and they might decide to close your account. Especially the new banks might not have the infrastructure required to handle that. This is because banks have to report income to the tax country to avoid money laundering and tax evasion.

American citizens have this problem because the US is always a tax residence regardless of where you live so a lot of banks don't want to provide financial service to them. And IRS is particularly bad with paperwork.

If you are thinking of moving abroad, use a big bank like Barclays or HSBC and it shouldn't be a problem.

This wasn't a problem for people I knew that did this, although the bank's occasional insistence on resolving problems in a branch was.

Revolut requires a physical address in the EEA for registration, but after that it can be used from anywhere in the world, including worldwide debit card delivery. It has already applied for a banking license in the EU, and is planning to do the same in the US. Even without it, it's much more feature-proof than Monzo[1], and is already profitable, unlike most other app-only banks[2].

[1] https://www.revolut.com/uk/pricing

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/indyventure/revo...

Your comment provides more information about the tangible convenient benefits of using Monzo than their website does. They really need to get someone to give that site an overhaul, concentrating on on what they do better than conventional banks.

I have a Monzo acocunt, and one with Starling who are similar. They are both great. Rumours I hear from developers are that they can't get management to take security seriously though, which is a little worrying...

That's worrying and also really surprising. If you have the time, would you mind giving more details either here or by email? (my email is in my profile)

Disclaimer: I work for a cybersecurity startup. Also a Monzo customer.

They are still better than the incumbent banks on security though. An example is how they both issued new cards to their customers affected by recent Ticketmaster data breaches, or British Airways hacks. After those events, they just contacted anyone who's shopped with the affected retailers and sent them new cards.

I don't think this is an example of "not taking security seriously". No incumbent bank has done this, because it's expensive to issue new cards.

> bunq

I live in a nearby non Euro country, and I'm thinking of closing my Halifax (traditional) bank account before Brexit.

I kept the Halifax account for foreign spending and cash, as the Mastercard has no fees for this. The bank account is free, typical in the UK for personal accounts.

Bunq looks to charge €8/month, is that right? I don't think I'd get that much value from it, and going from £0/year to €96/year for my secondary account isn't great.

Maybe for UK these features are amazing, but in Poland most banks have been providing users with similarly featured apps for several years now. Revolut is a bit different though, because it offers a fresh angle at multi currency support.

What bank? Between IdeaBank, BZWBK (now Santander) and Millenium Bank, all the applications were mediocre to (in case of Millenium for Business) utter crap.

Not sure when did you try them last time, mBank's the leader, many of them where revamped in the last 2 years.

Yes, the best ones are mBank and PKO BP, the latter recently winning the award for the best banking mobile app in the world.

The three I mentioned I use at the moment, and my opinion is current as of 2018-09-25. mBank... I do have an account, though I never bothered to install an app for it.

Is anyone aware of Revolut-ish online Maestro card providers? I'm in a European country where most small merchants only accept Maestro.

Edit: oh, apparently bunq does.

Revolut offers Maestro cards.

I'm guessing... Austria? They only accept specifically Maestro and not Mastercard? N26 by default gives you a Mastercard but they also offer a Maestro if requested[0]

[0] https://support.n26.com/read/000001452?locale=en

bunq looks amazing, and have all the features I would love in a bank, but 8€/month doesn't seems right. Going from 0€/year to 96€/year for APIs & notifications is not worthy.

If they ever get a free or cheaper plan (like €1/month for 1 card and 1 iban) I'd jump on it without thinking twice.

+1 for Bunq it's all you described for Euro countries.