Monzo has announced a new fee structure that will see some customers paying for replacement cards and cash withdrawals. In a post on its website, the online bank announced that as of 31st October it will be introducing a 3% fee to cash withdrawals over £250 in 30-days and a £5 fee for delivering replacement cards.
Despite this, the bank says that the new fees are unlikely to affect most customers, providing a customer is using Monzo as their ‘main bank’.
Cracking down on the 21%
Monzo has said that the new fees will apply only to customers who are using the service as a ‘spending card’. In order to determine whether a customer is using Monzo as a ‘main bank’ or ‘spending card’ the firm has provided a set of criteria that mean a customer can avoid paying additional fees:
- You’re paying in at least £500 every 35 days into a Monzo account and have at least one active Direct Debit on the same account in the same period, or
- You get a Department for Work and Pensions payment or Department for Communities’ payment into a Monzo account every 35 days
- You get a student loan paid into a Monzo account every 8 months
- You share a Monzo Joint Account with someone who does one of the above
- If you have Monzo Plus, there are no fees on withdrawing cash in the UK or EEA.
If a customer matches at least one of the above requirements, they’ll be exempt from these new fees. The bank has said that “based on how people used Monzo in the last year, 79% of people wouldn’t have paid any of these fees at all.” It does suggest, however, that one in five Monzo customers will be affected.
Mixed response
The new fee structure has already garnered a mixed response online, with customers taking to Twitter to complain. One user wrote; “How is
@monzo charging people to withdraw cash when every bank in the country lets you do it for free??? Next year it will cost to have money in the bank – glad I didn’t fully switch over”.
Another expressed confusion; “i’m confused about all these monzo fees bc the email i got from them said i’m not affected by them and just said they were for “other customers”. who are other customers”?
User experience design expert, Peter Ramsey also went online to question the bank’s approach to introducing the new fees. Speaking via a post on his LinkedIn page, Ramsey said, “They … give a list of pretty random conditions that, if met, mean you’ll pay no additional fees. But, this adds a major UX complication: are you a main bank user, or not?
“By segmenting their customers like this, they’ve increased the complexity of their UX at a compounding rate.”
