[mocko]

Sure, but that doesn't explain the sheer scale on which it happens (more than other UK banks and with seemingly worse consequences) or how the system actually works. It's also notable that this post was written a year before some of the news articles, indicating that Monzo really hadn't done anything to improve it.

One gets the feeling they're hiding behind the "we can't tell you why" excuse to escape accountability for a broken system that's literally ruining lives.

[samjmck]

> Sure, but that doesn't explain the sheer scale on which it happens

How do you know the scale and how are you not sure that it's a vocal minority? After all, Monzo does target more tech-savvy users that might be more likely to voice their frustration online than with other high-street banks.

> One gets the feeling they're hiding behind the "we can't tell you why" excuse to escape accountability for a broken system that's literally ruining lives.

Because maybe they are being forced to hide behind that? UK banking regulations are notoriously strict when it comes to what banks are allowed to share with their customers.

[mocko]

> How do you know the scale and how are you not sure that it's a vocal minority?

Read the articles and look for similar experiences for other banks. There's definitely a lot more noise about Monzo doing it. Maybe (as another comment suggested) there's a selection bias at work but I assure you it's a real thing, and appallingly handled by Monzo when it happens.

> Because maybe they are being forced to hide behind that?

That misinterprets what I said. If there are rules that say they don't have to be accountable for a misfiring fraud prevention system that hurts real people, where is the incentive to fix it?

[physicsguy]

What's the average age of a Barclays or TSB user vs a Monzo user? According to this, 72% of Monzo customers are 18-35: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/monzo-statistics/

If that's the case, it's fairly obvious why there'd be a lot more noise - a lot larger percentage of people in that age group doing crypto, and a larger percentage are "very online" and likely to complain about it there.

[drcongo]

I've switched to Starling. I still use Coinbase yet Starling have never frozen my account or held on to my money for a year.

[KptMarchewa]

You know that it does not happen to 99,9% of their customers either? For some reason everyone here thinks they are a snowflake.

[drcongo]

You're rather contradicting yourself there. If it's not happening to 99.9% of their customers then we obviously are special snowflakes. Maybe you could think through your attempts at insults a bit better.

[KptMarchewa]

It's you who claimed that nothing happens at your other accounts and that has to be "proof" of anything.

[drcongo]

No, I didn't. Try reading it again.

[Milner08]

They are 100% not behind the 'We cant tell you why'. It only takes the smallest amount of reading to figure that out. They have to report it to the FCA and you can read the reports from the FCA that suggest its not actually any worse than other banks. Its just more talked about. (No I am not going to dig them out for you).

[mocko]

Searched and I can't find any. I did, however, find a Which? article that says "Resolver found almost three-quarters of complaints about frozen bank accounts mentioned ‘digital’ banks".

Statistically it doesn't seem likely that Monzo and its ilk would be so overrepresented merely because their customers are more fazed than others about having their money taken away. Still, if the FCA have published meaningful statistics I could be proved wrong.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/09/why-banks-are-freezing-...

[bostik]

I can't tell which way the arrow of causality points, but all the digital banks in the UK are in various stages of still growing to reach the scale where they can become sustainably profitable.

This in turn means that they will have their risk assessments inverted from the usual high-street banks: optimise signup/account creation flow, and deal with AML requirements in a slightly delayed fashion. Making it really easy and smooth to open a current account brings in a surprising fraction of the crowd who would be rejected or otherwise earmarked by high-street banks.

Being digital upstarts, these modern banks also don't have the fraud and risk departments their established competition has. In order to not get hammered by the FCA, they almost certainly veer on the blunt instrument side when dealing with suspicious activity. And law of large numbers guarantees that there will be a significant number of false positives.

[dazc]

As a former Barclays customer I can confirm this. Last year I changed from self-employed to limited company and changing my business account at Barclays proved to be impossible despite always previously being in credit with no issues at all. I was able to open a monzo business account in less than 20 minutes.

This, I should add, at a time when there was a high incidence of fraud with people trying to open business accounts for dormant and non-existent companies simply so they could claim Govt backed loans where it was clear that very few checks were actually being carried out.