[maccard]

> no option to top up using a credit card from another bank

Can you top up your HSBC account with a credit card from another bank? A Monzo account is just another bank account.

> no physical branches

Is this really a con? Last time I visited a branch (Nationwide), I was told to just go online and fill in the forms. Monzo let you deposit cash and cheques at the post office - my post office has better opening hours, shorter queues, and there are more of them than branches of my specific bank.

[anarchitect]

> Monzo let you deposit cash and cheques at the post office

Not quite. You can deposit at any PayPoint location (mostly corner shops and the like), not Post Offices [0]. They also charge £1 for each deposit and the maximum deposit is £300. This is not an issue for me (I rarely see or use cash), but it would be for some.

Having made my first deposit at the weekend, the main issue is that the shopkeepers have no idea how to accept a deposit. I tried four places, and only managed to succeed in the end because I instructed the shopkeeper how to do it.

[0] https://monzo.com/blog/2018/11/21/deposit-cash

[maccard]

My bad - it's actually starling [0] who do post office.

[0] https://www.starlingbank.com/blog/post-office-deposits/

[dbbk]

Can you get emergency cash from the Post Office though? Cause I got mugged recently and was able to walk into HSBC and get money out while I waited for a replacement card. I fear if I closed that account and went all-in on Monzo I'd be locked out.

[maccard]

That's a very good point and one I hadn't considered. In this day and age in the UK I'd consider it irresponsible to only have one bank account. The TSB outage is a prime example of what can go wrong and leave you stuck. For me, I keep roughly a months worth of expenses in a high street bank with a card in the drawer, but touch wood I've never had to use it so I don't know how well it works. Before I used Starling (I actually don't use Monzo - but they're comparable for all intents and purposes) I had two bank accounts with different networks and did the same thing there, FWIW.

[randomvectors]

> Can you top up your HSBC account with a credit card from another bank? A Monzo account is just another bank account.

That's a good point. But with the low exchange rate and a modern app, they're also (willingly or not) competing with Revolut. I can top up a Revolut account with a credit card.

[maccard]

That's also a fair point - the idea of a bank account has been muddied. Monzo had "pots" which all gain interest, and they come from the same account. I'm not aware of any other bank accounts that offer embedded savings accounts.

I do think that comparing a bank account to a prepaid card is a little too much of a stretch thoigh.

[randomvectors]

Revolut isn't just a prepaid card. What they offer is very similar to Monzo, even if they started out differently. That's why they're competing with each other and it's fair to compare them.

[maccard]

I have to say, I'm actually a little muddied on what revolut is. They claim to be a current account, except they're not fscs protected, but they do have some interesting parallels and additions to a current account.