Top all-time · #223
Monzo
Company blog · monzo.com/blogbusinessprogramming
Monzo is the company blog at monzo.com, writing about business and programming. Since 2016, 207 different Hacker News readers have linked it 304 times, most often “Tone of Voice Guide”. The last post was in 2019, but the archive is still widely read.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Monzo's blog and help, docs and API pages on its banking licence, engineering posts on Kubernetes and cloud outages, and its tone-of-voice guidelines. Many links are hiring posts.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Your salary sorted into Pots. Your spare change turned into savings. Your money, doing what it should with Monzo.
Most-linked posts?
- Tone of Voice Guide14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2018-10-31
- Building a Modern Bank Backend9 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2016-09-19
- Monzo9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2016-09-01
- /6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2016-12-01
- We had issues with Monzo on 29th July6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-08-09
- Monzo Stand-In6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2025-02-13
- Welcome to Monzo Bank5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-04-05
- Monzo Is Launching in the USA5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-06-13
- Building a Modern Bank Back End5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-08-09
- Monzo – Very Robust etcd4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-11-29
What Hacker News says?
I don't think the article is sarcastic given the nature of their app. Where does one draw the line though? ESG[1] is becoming increasingly important to investors and I already see financial institutions instituting controls in their apps around gambling [2]. When should large companies with sufficient reach implement opportunities to address social harms? [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social…
Comment linking /blog/2018/06/19/gambling-block-self-exclusion
on “iOS 15 Humane”Submitted Why Monzo's bank transfers weren't working on the 30th of May as a story · 284 points
HN discussionMonzo is another company which does this incredibly well, and wrote a public document on it: https://monzo.com/tone-of-voice/ I'd love to read more on this topic - how companies learn to do this, and then go about establishing it internally, so that it becomes part of their brand and culture.
Comment linking /tone-of-voice/
on “Bolt founder on Stripe/YC”Submitted How we protect our most sensitive secrets from the most determined attackers as a story · 280 points
HN discussionhttps://monzo.com/ - they are already up and running, with lifted banking licence and they have an API.
Comment linking /
on “Root – Programmable bank account for software developers”Submitted How we secure Monzo's banking platform as a story · 169 points
HN discussionhttps://monzo.com/docs/ ??
Comment linking /docs/
on “Root – Programmable bank account for software developers”Submitted Monzo’s Response to Cloudbleed as a story · 151 points
HN discussionhttps://monzo.com/docs/
Comment linking /docs/
on “Root – Programmable bank account for software developers”Submitted Monzo: How our security team handle secrets as a story · 137 points
HN discussionI don't see any mention on Monzo's page about having an API. EDIT: Found a blog post about it! https://monzo.com/blog/2016/02/03/mondo-api/ cool!
Comment linking /blog/2016/02/03/mondo-api/
on “Root – Programmable bank account for software developers”Submitted We built network isolation for 1500 services as a story · 135 points
HN discussionI don't think anyone has mentioned it, but could their motive for this launch is to get in before Monzo launches in the states (source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliversmith/2018/10/31/with-a-f... ) Monzo has blown up in the UK, and I know their team is growing at a crazy rate. While they aren't profitable yet, they plan to sell financial services through their marketplace (insurance, mortgages etc.) which seems…
Comment linking /blog/2017/11/16/monzo-marketplace/
on “Robinhood launches 3% checking account”Submitted Monzo Stand-In as a story · 130 points
HN discussionThat's not the case, a bank works in the same way. Typically a bank or financial institution will employ a set of machine learning models or rules (combined with human review) and freeze accounts on that basis. Like PayPal, a bank also will not tell you why it has frozen your account (to avoid ripping off others in a crime ring). PayPal (like banks) give you an opportunity to fight it, but like banks they can't simp…
Comment linking /blog/2019/04/04/why-we-block-freeze-close-monzo-accounts/
on “We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business”Submitted Tone of Voice Guide as a story · 100 points
HN discussionNote: in the UK, advise is to avoid using your CC over 25% of your limit. Apparently this might negatively affect your credit score. One source: https://monzo.com/blog/2018/08/08/better-credit-score/ , a bank’s blog, but I’ve seen it in other places. Never from the horse’s mouth, though.
Comment linking /blog/2018/08/08/better-credit-score/
on “We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business”Submitted Building a Modern Bank Backend as a story · 88 points
HN discussionMonzo will be offering current accounts soon. https://monzo.com/blog/2017/04/05/banking-licence/
Comment linking /blog/2017/04/05/banking-licence/
on “PhantomJS: Stepping down as maintainer”Submitted Designing a product with mental health issues in mind as a story · 76 points
HN discussionMonzo | Full time | London/remote | Visas sponsored | https://monzo.com/careers/ At Monzo we aim to build the best current account in the world. We are always keen to hear from capable, creative engineers who want to help us accomplish that goal; specifically backend engineers and Android engineers, and we also offer paid engineering internships. Our engineering team have a variety of different backgrounds: we have…
Comment linking /blog/
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2016)”Submitted Tolerating full cloud outages with Monzo Stand-in as a story · 64 points
HN discussionRelevant but not exhaustive: https://monzo.com/help/legal-stuff/information-facebook
Comment linking /help/legal-stuff/information-facebook
on “Off-Facebook activity”Submitted We deploy to production over 100 times a day as a story · 36 points
HN discussionThis is interesting to observe from the UK. - Cashback is generally lower here because interchange fees are regulated/capped to 0.3% for personal credit cards and 0.2% for personal debit cards. Offers of 2% cashback simply won't work outside the US so I'll be curious to see how (if?) they try and expand this globally. - "All of the spending tracking and other information is stored directly on the device, not Apple’s…
Comment linking /blog/2018/11/19/instant-google-pay/
on “Apple announces Apple Card credit card”Submitted We run migrations across 2,800 microservices as a story · 29 points
HN discussionMonzo [1], Starling [2], Atom [3] and Tandem [4] all manage to have HTTPS landing pages. If they can, there isn't any excuse for the more established banks not to as well. Hopefully their mobile apps use HTTPS for everything too? Apparently 35% of all UK banks have insecure landing pages. [5][6] [1] https://monzo.com [2] https://www.starlingbank.com [3] https://www.atombank.co.uk [4] https://www.tandem.co.uk [5] htt…
Comment linking /
on “HTTPS on Your Landing Page Is Important”Submitted We built network isolation for 1,500 services as a story · 28 points
HN discussionMonzo | Backend, Data, iOS, Android & Web Engineers | London, UK | VISA, REMOTE, INTERNS https://monzo.com/ At Monzo we aim to build the best current account in the world. We are always keen to hear from capable, creative engineers who want to help us accomplish that goal. Our backend engineering team have a variety of different backgrounds: we have several non-graduates; only a couple of us studied Computer Science…
Comment linking /careers/
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2017)”Submitted Protecting customers from the Ticketmaster breach: Monzo's story as a story · 26 points
HN discussion
