Monzo. Starling Bank. Revolut. The last decade has seen the rise of the digital bank. And they're successfully taking on the established financial institutions.
Last September, London-based Monzo announced that more than a million people were using its pink – or, as the company prefers to say, 'hot coral' – bank cards. Founded in 2015, it's consistently ramping up its offering.
Last year it rolled-out support for connectivity service If This Then That, but there are plenty hidden features in Monzo's own app that will help you bank more efficiently. Here's our pick of the best and read our Monzo review to see how it stacks up to the competition.
Keep track of your business trip expenses
‘Welcome to Germany’ – you’ve just landed at Frankfurt Airport and the message appears in your Monzo home feed. If you mark it as business travel, all transactions during the trip will be categorised as expenses rather than costs.
To avoid losing the pile of receipts, you can take pictures with your phone and add them to each relevant transaction. This feature may be useful to store receipts for valuable items such as cameras, jewellery or pieces of art, just in case.
Pool your spare change
Monzo lets its customers to create a joint account on the profile page that is separate to their personal one; the person they would like to invite will need to have a Monzo account too.
First step, done. You can now set up scheduled payments or round up your day-to-day transactions to the nearest pound and add the additional change to a fixed savings pot. The money – which can’t be withdrawn for six to 12 months – will earn you up to 1.55 per cent of interest per year through Monzo’s partner company OakNorth. The catch? You need a deposit of £500 to get started.
Get notified when your bills increase
You’ve set up direct debits for household bills. Now, if your energy provider or phone contract has gone up, Monzo will send you a notification. Monzo is currently exploring the option of a way to easily switch and manage bills in the app to save people money.
Keep bills going when your card is lost
From time to time, new features will be made available for testing in Monzo Labs, through the app's profile page. One example removes the hassle of updating subscriptions when your Monzo card is replaced.
If you activate a new card while ‘share card replacements’ is turned on in Labs, Mastercard will receive an automated message with your new card details – Spotify, Amazon, Uber and the like will use this to update your subscriptions.
View your Barclays balance
Another experimental feature allows you to link Monzo with your Barclaycard to stay on top of your balances. It takes advantage of open banking. An opt-in in Labs will prompt you to enter your Barclays card details, which are securely stored via TrueLayer.
A few minutes later, the card will be listed at the bottom of the account tab. Balances update once a day. This will likely become available for other credit card providers such as American Express if the feature proves useful.
Keep track of what you’re owed
Next time you pay for a weekend away with your friends or the household bills, split the bill to get your money back by clicking on the transaction. To make things even easier: a shared tab keeps track of all the payments you’d like to share. Head to the payments section in the app and tap ‘share’ in the menu to create a new tab and invite your friends. Shared costs can be added and settled whenever you want.
Get a different coloured card
Monzo’s distinctive cards now come in three colours. For £3 a month, you can become one of the first to trial Monzo Plus and get a new card in 'lagoon blue' or 'midnight sky'. Monzo.me – the payment link shared to send or request money – can also be customised to a personal or business name. But you have to be patient – there is a waitlist.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
