Monzo faces second tech issue in a week

Monzo faces second tech issue in a week

Engineers at app-only bank Monzo are back on the fire-fighting front line for the second time in a week as they grapple to fix issues relating to incorrect payment displays with the startup's mobile app.

On Monday, Monzo announced plans to move card processing inhouse after a severe outage at its current third party service provider left customers high and dry for most of Sunday.

Now it appears that the technical gremlins have struck again, this time causing payments between users, transactions and balances to display incorrectly in the app.

The problems first appeared overnight and persist into this morning as Monzo's tech team continue to investigate the problem. "This remains an in-app display problem and your card will work as normal," says the bank in a status update to its 120,000 customers.

Another issue that caused the Android app to crash when launched has been fixed.

The cock-ups are an embarrassment for the firm, which bills itself as a "technology company as much as a bank", but appear inevitable for a digital business model based on the premise of agile on-the-fly iterations and fast time to market.

Comments: (5)

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 08 March, 2017, 11:48Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Well, a challenger bank is a challenger bank. I.e. "challenge" is the name of the game.

Michael Fuller
Michael Fuller - None - London 08 March, 2017, 11:57Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Monzo has over 100,000 "alpha and beta" testers at the moment (not 12,000) so users understand that the service won't be 100% all the time. The transparency with which they operate and speed of response though rather puts the traditional Banks to shame.

The moment there's an issue the App explains the situation and users don't have to take to Twitter to find out what is wrong. 

Ketharaman Swaminathan
Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 08 March, 2017, 17:53Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

You forgot one more premise of the digital business model: "fail fast":)

Ketharaman Swaminathan
Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 08 March, 2017, 17:54Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

At least they can't blame the pet whipping boy, legacy systems, for this cock up!

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 09 March, 2017, 10:52Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Monzo are very clear that they are still in a testing phase, and users should always carry another card.  As Michael says, it's a rare standard of transparency and collaboration for the industry.  Normally when outages like this happen to established banks, cash flows and even balances can be affected.

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