I donāt think itās wise for Freetrade to dilute itās brand by integrating with Monzo - given their look and feel is not dissimilar it would be easy to confuse Freetrade as simply an offshoot of Monzo.
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Thatās because Monzo are buying Freetrade for Ā£100 million - just need that VC signed off ā¦
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Ā£100M
too little too soon. I rather wait and get more marshmallows
Edit: what I mean is: I think FT itās worth less than Ā£100M today, but I wouldnāt sell for that price today for I believe FT will be worth substantially more than that in 3 to 5 years although I donāt forget it could go bankrupt instead
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Great - Freetrade will never become profitable if that happens!
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Totally agree Iād 
to see a seamless integration between monzo and freetrade.
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Please let this happen!
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Out of curiosity, would you really pay more to invest just to have access to Freetrade within Monzo?
I can understand the point that it would be good for Freetrade since they might get more customers, and good for Monzo since they can make some money off the deal, but it seems quite bad for customers.
A Ā£ not invested today (due to fee drag) is many Ā£Ā£s not earned in the future.
The normal model would be Freetrade having to spend money on advertising to acquire customers. This marketplace model where the customer effectively continually pays the equivalent of the advertising agency (Monzo) in order to remain a customer just seemsā¦ gross.
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Some people do prefer the ease of it all being in one place
Why shop at tescos vs buying all your things cheaper from 20 shops
Because of ease
Personally I would stick with the free trade app but someone that hasnāt heard of or used free-trade may benefit from it being in Monzo even with a small fee
A Ā£ not invested can never grow
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Yes, ease of use may be a factor. In the case of physical shops it is a very significant barrier. To go to 3 different shops instead of 1 could triple or more the time it takes to shop.
But to open up 3 different apps on your phone instead of 1ā¦ personally I donāt see that to be a barrier worth paying for. Indeed, using an app custom designed for its particular purpose is most likely to save me time and improve ease of use.
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But the crux here is that some people might never invest if it wasnāt in Monzo
Yes, this is āthe customer pays for the advertisingā model. It would be better for customers if Monzo simply had a āsuggestionsā page where Freetrade could pay to advertise a suggestion that Monzo users try out investing via Freetrade.
Having the customer pay Monzo every month or year to use one of the suggestions is what I find distasteful.
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But some people, clearly not yourself, might like all their money and investments in a single app and be willing to pay a small fee to have it all in one place (pay for the integration of freetrade within Monzo)
Personally I am okay with using multiple apps but know lots that arenāt
Sure, this theoretical person might exist. You and I are not this person. I was curious if anyone else in this thread would actually pay for integration?
It just seems antithetical that people attracted to Freetrade because of their Ā£0 costs would pay a cost to use Freetrade. That really only leaves the people who arenāt paying for the integration, but merely for advertising.
Iāve not used Monzoās existing 3rd party account integrations (the savings account for example). Is the integration actually useful and of value?
I got the impression it was still really quite separate feeling in terms of UI and interactions.
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A savings account and an investment account to me would be quite different
The monzo savings account you literally put x amount in and then it shows up in the app as you have x amount in savings gaining y interest
With freetrade it would require a bit more effort because there are lots more options in terms of different shares. Isa vs non Isa etc.
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Unless Freetrade simply sacrifices that little difference in revenue to retain the same prices in order to secure Monzoās huge market in its hands. Transferwise did the same thing by partnering with Monzo, the latter could be used for international transfers which the former facilitated. The price in Monzo and Transferwise was identical, but if you used Monzo, it would retain a tiny slice of revenue. I donāt see that being detrimental to Transferwise, nor I believe it will be disadvantageous to Freetrade.
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In the case of Transferwise though, it looked to me like Transferwise was plugging a gap in the overall ābankingā experience by facilitating international payments for Monzo and doing it in a low cost user friendly way. I would expect there to have been more incentive to make this partnership happen from Monzoās side to avoid criticisms of āwhat happens if you need to send money abroadā.
Freetrade is a good fit from perspective of similar customer friendly culture and whatās becoming a viral/loved brand. There is considerable crossover between the two user bases. Iām not sure how a partnership would work right now in terms of revenue share. Especially as share trading is not expected by most banking customers so they are not fixing Monzos problem like perhaps Transferwise did.
Share trading likely is intended to be one of the key spokes on the hub and spoke model Monzo talks about as their endgame business model, so in time they will look to integrate with a provider that provides a share dealing service theyāre happy with, I think that would be the right time for the two companies to work together. By that time Freetrade will likely have hundreds of thousands of users. I dont think Freetrade should compromise their business model for the sake of a shot at Monzo customers at this early stage when the product is not perfected.
I think a deal in which Monzo takes equity and foregoes fees in return for Freetrade neatly addressing the investment spoke of the hub and spoke model is maybe the best way for both companies to benefit in a few years. This does contradict Monzos vision of being a control centre and outsourcing services to other providers. But I think this would be the workable permanent integration when Monzo is cashflow positive and Freetrade have 6figure user numbers to shop around
The alternative would be to just pay once per customer attributable to the Monzo partnership.
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I think its good just because its a fast way for Monzo to compete with Revolut - they are building stocks and shares too. Having said that, Iām not sure if it fits into Monzoās āOpen Banking modelā where they just refer customers to the ābestā investment product.
Monzo donāt aim to integrate with the best, just a selection of very good providers. Thereās currently 3 providers of savings products, I could see something similar with investments as well
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Hoping they do it this way, and freetrade takes part. I think itād be good for everyone.
If its done that way, how do we know if Freetrade is one of the āvery good providersā compared against the likes of hargreaves lansdown?