[dchesterton]

I've recently moved home and these are the steps I had to take to change my address with my current bank and Monzo.

My bank: I look on their website which says I can phone up and do it over the phone. I phone up, go through the automated options and then I'm told that actually I have to go into a branch with ID and proof of address because apparently I'm not registered for 'telephone banking' (why?!).

The nearest branch to me is open 9-4.30pm on weekdays and 9-1pm on Saturdays. I generally work at these times so I have to take time out of work to go into a branch, queue for 10 minutes and eventually get it changed.

Monzo: I open a live chat within their app, answer a couple of security questions and the address is changed right away. It took about 5 minutes at most and I could do it while working on other things.

My bank also charge a small fortune for foreign transactions and contactless won't work abroad. Monzo is free and contactless has so far worked fine in 3 different countries.

The UK banking industry is massively behind the times with regards to customer service, facilities and technology. The potential for Monzo is huge if they can pull off what they're trying to achieve.

[dx034]

The banking industry is very conservative because of regulation. Changing identity over live chat just by answering some security questions seems to be quite vulnerable to fraud.

I can also imagine that changing the customers' address without proof of address could violate KYC/AML rules.

So while I agree that banking in the UK can be a pain (although less than in other countries), I think it's mostly due to legal requirements, not bad intention.

With interest rates that low, retail banking is all about cost cutting. They could save a lot more money if you'd never have to visit a branch, but verifying an identity via chat is not easy.

[dchesterton]

I'm not so sure. My bank would accept an address change over the phone for 'telephone banking' customers, which is no more secure than an in-app chat. Even if they required me to upload proof via the in-app chat, that would still be 100x easier than the process I had to go through with my bank.

Obviously banks have a lot of regulation they have to comply with but I think a lot of it is simply a case of "that's how it's always been" and a lack of competition due to the high barriers to entry.