I’m interested to know, that if as has been quoted in the thread at least 51% of borrowers get a rate of 22.8% or better, at what APR is better 
Have I missed something in Monzo’s blurb? A better rate if I were lucky enough to be in the 51 percent club, would be 3.9 percent, or am I just being unreasonable? You don’t get to see your ‘personalised’ rate until a hard search has been carried out. I wonder if anyone who applies for a Monzo loan of up to £7k who is a 51 percenter customer will divulge the actual rate they got. I’m thinking they wouldn’t.
I’m under the impression that they don’t exploit this regulation to their advantage like other lenders. I presume there is no better than their advertised rate, and presumably no worse either.
Contrast to Barclaycard. I’m in the 51% that get the advertised rate or better. More specifically I’m in the pool that gets better. With them, I didn’t find out until after my application had been successful. But that’s a credit card, so it may be different with loans, and they’ll assess and offer you a rate before the application completes. If you’re interested, mine is 4% less than the current advertised APR for the platinum card.
It was just an example scenario they used to explain the nonsense regulation, and I wouldn’t read into it as you are.
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Yikes! So, you go through the process of applying for a loan, you get to the end after a hard search appears on your credit file, only to see an APR resembling a credit card APR and decide to not to go through with it.
…but the hard search is still on your file, making it less likely you’ll get in elsewhere. That seems…pretty blinkin’ lousy.
It’s nonsense. Monzo perform a soft search and you get all the information that you need before actually applying - same with Flex and overdrafts. Once you actually accept then a hard search will be performed.
I’ve just verified this by going as far as having everything presented to me - loan amount, repayments and interest rate. It clearly said that a hard search wouldn’t be performed until I accepted the loan agreement.
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I don’t doubt you. When I posted that earlier piece, I believe I just gleaned the information about hard searches from that Monzo thread which as you are well aware, was subsequently ‘cleaned up’ by the moderators.
I would still say though, that reading through that Monzo thread, I didn’t/couldn’t understand why anyone would want to take out a loan at a significantly higher APR than othewise available from other lenders. There are customers though that do just want to keep everything ‘in house’, or use the excuse that it’s too much trouble going through the loan application process with other lenders. Each to their own though.
If there’s a choice between for example, paying 3.8 percent APR on a £5k loan from lender A or 9 percent APR for the same amount from lender B, I know which lender (subject to approval) I’d choose to borrow from. I stress those are examples, not anything relating to Monzo as I have no idea just how much Monzo are currently charging for loans. I personally took out a loan for £5k over 36 months last November from Nationwide at 3.9 percent APR which was significantly lower than many other lenders. I was paid the money within 48 hours of application.
Totally with you there! Although I generally like the Monzo experience, I wouldn’t use their savings pots when other providers offer a (much) higher interest rate and neither would I take out a loan at their high interest rates.
They are comparable to a number of other banks but I agree - there are better options out there (Chase 
) - I actually just store mine in a normal pot cos I have plus, strangely I get better interest that way
Please tell me this is satire
I’m starting to think Monzo’s target audience is folks in a serious situation who think that shenanigans like this will help them “get on top of debt”.
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I see yet again, someone has found the Monzo forum and wants to know why Monzo have rejected them for an account.
Trouble is, as with all of these folks who want to know why a bank has ‘rejected’ them for an account, you only get I suspect, a part of the story.
I’m surprised no one over the other side even asked if the OP is on the Electoral Roll for example, as this can be a sure fire way of at least giving a bank an idea that you have a history and exist. Of course there is a problem with some folk who for whatever reason, absolutely refuse to register to vote, but that’s another story.
If the OP is on the Electoral Roll and they genuinely have no skeletons in their financial closet, they should think of the rejection from Monzo as a lucky escape in my view and find a bank that will accept them for an account.
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This also means that 49% of customers are offered a rate worse than 22.8% 
Surely encouraging people to borrow more than they need, albeit with the option of paying some back immediately, is against FCA regulations?
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Is the new borrowing conditional on repaying a chunk immediately? In which case, it might get through as a refinancing deal
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Doesn’t look like it from the example they give.
I’ve just been reading that awful account a customer has related regarding a phishing scam and the subsequent hacking of their account.
We can of course all say, ‘It’ll never happen to me’, but of course it does. I myself have been the victim of identity theft several years ago when I was with Lloyds and that didn’t involve me even giving my details out to anyone, seems it was all part of a card skimming fraud. Thankfully it was all dealt with, but it took a lot of effort on my behalf too, as a few of the companies involved didn’t even have fraud departments.
But going back to getting phone calls. I will never answer any phone calls that aren’t in my contacts list. I receive several scam calls a week, and they must be scammers because they always ring off after 5 rings and they never leave a voicemail or any form of follow up text message. The trick is, just don’t answer your phone, let it ring out and see if they attempt to call you back, or leave a message. If they leave a message claiming to be from your bank, treat it as a scam call and if you’re that worried, immediately freeze your card and message the bank in app or phone them using the number on the back of the debit card.
Yes, I know this is all common sense stuff, but folks for some reason have this insane desire to answer the bloody phone when it rings because it must be important. If it’s that important and it’s from a bona fida organisation, they will leave a message or have other methods to contact you. I keep my iphone on ‘silence unknown callers’ permanently. It stops a lot of the scamming rot. My Android phone is the one that gets all of the scam calls, but I just let it ring out and then immediately report the number as a scam and it’s blocked. The people or organisations who get on my nerves, are the ones who say I didn’t leave a voicemail because I don’t like leaving voice messages. Well in that case, they deserve to be ignored.
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Isn’t this something you’ve always been able to do anyway in Starling? Even First Direct, you can view CVV in app. And there was me convinced by all of the crowing over Monzo, that they are leagues above other banks.
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I didn’t post it for it to be a Monzo Vs Starling discussion. It seems you really dislike Monzo
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It was an observation. It wasn’t meant to be a Monzo vs Starling discussion and I see you missed out FD in the mention there too. There was no agenda in it.
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I’ve never really had any interest with First Direct tbf but yes lots of banks have had the CVV feature already and Monzo is the last.
Monzo has been lacking but in my eyes I just don’t see monzo for what it used to be any more. I’ve recently considered how I could pull myself away from Monzo but don’t have the full picture yet.
The main reasons I have premium are for Mobile Insurance and a virtual card for bills that are not paid via Direct Debit.
I looked at insurance elsewhere and found it to be £5 cheaper than the Monzo Premium. But then if I get that and keep Monzo plus for £5 I’m not really saving and I’m still paying into the monzo ecosystem.
I personally don’t think I fit into Monzo’s target customer base anymore and seem to be simply frustrated about decisions the bank has made and is making to this day.
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I think you’ll have gleaned from enough of my posts, that I’m clearly not a Monzo customer. I did think about it around the time I opened a Starling account in 2018. I’d been on the Monzo forum a couple of times, but that put me off a lot from going any further. But mainly, I am definitely not in their demographic.
I’m at a loss when I read the forum, as to why people genuinely seem content to pay more for things just to keep their finances ‘in house’. To me, that makes no financial sense whatsoever.
I have a packaged bank account with Nationwide, and it’s great for the travel/breakdown/mobile phone insurance. I doubt I could get a similar package anywhere else for £13 a month.
I don’t need metal debit cards or bright pink cards, stuff which seems to get some folks boats rocking. I’ve said recently, that the Chase debit card is probably the most professional looking debit card I’ve seen for ages, but opinions are just that.
I don’t nor will I ever wish Monzo any ill will, but I do torture myself daily reading the posts on the forum. I guess it does give me a good dose of belly laughs if nothing else 
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