We just missed out on Mondo’s (now Monzo) record crowdfunding campaign, they raised £1M in 96 seconds back in March but ever since then we were extremely excited to give the app ago, after speaking with one of their investors we really couldn’t wait as he showed us around the app, we got home and managed to bump ourselves up the 80,000 strong waiting list at the time by speaking with one of the team. #perksofthejob
The card came within a couple of days and here is a brief run down of why it’s awesome:
“OMG! The colour!”
The first words from my fiancée when she saw the card, supposedly this is a colour that girls love. Orange with a slight pink hue!
Notifications for each purchase
Such an obvious thing to include for all banking apps, you instantly know when your card is being used + can confirm the amount was correct before you leave a store etc.
Spending history
You can instantly see what you’re spending and where, there is no 3rd party system, it just works! The system automatically categorises your purchases, for instance, it knows that Lidl is groceries so it puts it in the ‘Groceries’ section, so obvious but so brilliant.
Download the app
Find out more + jump the queue and download the app here
Quick glance at your spending habit
This balance graph appears when you scroll through your recent transactions, a nice visual representation of how you’re doing
Perfect Budgeting Assistant
Making a budget is boring, keeping to one can be hard but often the reason is because it’s a right faff. With the spending history you can see exactly what you’ve spent, where it was spent and what category it was in. You can also export this data into other services.
“I don’t remember that transaction?”
Something you won’t ever have to say again, it gives you the location on a map showing you where you made the purchase along with the obvious things like company name, logo, full address and history of purchases at this location.
The icons!
Having a small icon next to the store, pub or restaurant really is a nice touch. Best of all they seem to actively add new logos if one isn’t shown. For instance ‘The Black Horse’ didn’t have a logo one week but then the next week the logo appeared as if by magic!
Support is via Chat
No waiting for customer service to pick up the phone, just send a chat message when you have a spare minute and they will get back to you. Pretty simple, although in the future this might be an issue for immediate issues.
Immediately freeze your card
Ideal if your card is stolen or cloned, just go to the app and freeze it.
Secure
Touch ID on iOS makes the app easy and secure, failing that a pin code is optional and does the same thing
Regardless of whether you turn on Touch ID protection for the app, your fingerprint/PIN will always be required for payments and other sensitive actions.
Pay your mates and have their photos next to their name
Such a simple thing to have but it works and is fee free. There are tons of apps just trying to do this, Mondo (now Monzo) does it as standard from within the app. 
Conclusion
It’s the future but today, all banks will eventually try and replicate parts/all of these features but by then Mondo (now Monzo) will be leaps ahead of them.
Mondo (now Monzo) have now successfully registered as a bank so we expect to see great things from them by this time next year but between now and then we would recommend everyone grabs a Mondo (now Monzo) card.
