Andrew Lawson’s Post

For the past few months a small number of Monzo customers have opened their app and been prompted to use our basic banking experience, which is a key part of our Monzo emergency banking mode used if our primary banking platform is experiencing an outage. Monzo Stand-in is our answer to a regulatory challenge around critical suppliers, of which AWS is one. We now have a complete back-up bank (data, software, infra, etc.) that securely operates as a first class citizen of our production infrastructure meaning in the event of any major failure (e.g. we break production), this system will immediately stand-in to maintain customer service. Importantly, we're also able to partially invoke Stand-In so we can use individual components (e.g. just FPS inbound/outbound) in the case of limited primary platform/service outage. Monzo Stand-in has been running invisibly in the background for 6 months verifying the decisions it takes are fully consistent with our primary platform. As an illustration, that means that card payments are processed in both platforms simultaneously and our verification infrastructure substantiates decision consistency in realtime. During the past few months we’ve randomly selected a small population of customers to complete their task using our emergency mode, which is what customers see if they open the app if we’ve lost the primary platform. Every day a tiny group of customers are randomly selected to use the experience after which they will not be eligible again for another 5 years. Of course - if it's an inconvenient time, they can quickly and easily get out. Yes - we’re testing in production and I’m pleased that our data demonstrates that even this basic experience is good enough to solve customer’s needs. All these forms of continuous testing give confidence that our entire fallback infrastructure works, from the UI all the way down through our systems, infrastructure, networking and data. If you’re a Monzo customer and you open your app and see this - give it a run out, you might not see it again for 5 years. If you want to join us in going the extra mile to make banking magical, simple and reliable in the UK and beyond - I'm hiring engineers, engineering leaders and data scientists, apply here: https://monzo.com/careers/

For the past few months a small number of Monzo customers have opened their app and been prompted to use our basic banking experience, which is a key part of our Monzo emergency banking mode used if our primary banking platform is experiencing an outage. Monzo Stand-in is our answer to a regulatory challenge around critical suppliers, of which AWS is one. We now have a complete back-up bank (data, software, infra, etc.) that securely operates as a first class citizen of our production infrastructure meaning in the event of any major failure (e.g. we break production), this system will immediately stand-in to maintain customer service. Importantly, we're also able to partially invoke Stand-In so we can use individual components (e.g. just FPS inbound/outbound) in the case of limited primary platform/service outage. Monzo Stand-in has been running invisibly in the background for 6 months verifying the decisions it takes are fully consistent with our primary platform. As an illustration, that means that card payments are processed in both platforms simultaneously and our verification infrastructure substantiates decision consistency in realtime. During the past few months we’ve randomly selected a small population of customers to complete their task using our emergency mode, which is what customers see if they open the app if we’ve lost the primary platform. Every day a tiny group of customers are randomly selected to use the experience after which they will not be eligible again for another 5 years. Of course - if it's an inconvenient time, they can quickly and easily get out. Yes - we’re testing in production and I’m pleased that our data demonstrates that even this basic experience is good enough to solve customer’s needs. All these forms of continuous testing give confidence that our entire fallback infrastructure works, from the UI all the way down through our systems, infrastructure, networking and data. If you’re a Monzo customer and you open your app and see this - give it a run out, you might not see it again for 5 years. If you want to join us in going the extra mile to make banking magical, simple and reliable in the UK and beyond - I'm hiring engineers, engineering leaders and data scientists, apply here: https://monzo.com/careers/

For the past few months a small number of Monzo customers have opened their app and been prompted to use our basic banking experience, which is a key part of our Monzo emergency banking mode used if our primary banking platform is experiencing an outage. Monzo Stand-in is our answer to a regulatory challenge around critical suppliers, of which AWS is one. We now have a complete back-up bank (data, software, infra, etc.) that securely operates as a first class citizen of our production infrastructure meaning in the event of any major failure (e.g. we break production), this system will immediately stand-in to maintain customer service. Importantly, we're also able to partially invoke Stand-In so we can use individual components (e.g. just FPS inbound/outbound) in the case of limited primary platform/service outage. Monzo Stand-in has been running invisibly in the background for 6 months verifying the decisions it takes are fully consistent with our primary platform. As an illustration, that means that card payments are processed in both platforms simultaneously and our verification infrastructure substantiates decision consistency in realtime. During the past few months we’ve randomly selected a small population of customers to complete their task using our emergency mode, which is what customers see if they open the app if we’ve lost the primary platform. Every day a tiny group of customers are randomly selected to use the experience after which they will not be eligible again for another 5 years. Of course - if it's an inconvenient time, they can quickly and easily get out. Yes - we’re testing in production and I’m pleased that our data demonstrates that even this basic experience is good enough to solve customer’s needs. All these forms of continuous testing give confidence that our entire fallback infrastructure works, from the UI all the way down through our systems, infrastructure, networking and data. If you’re a Monzo customer and you open your app and see this - give it a run out, you might not see it again for 5 years. If you want to join us in going the extra mile to make banking magical, simple and reliable in the UK and beyond - I'm hiring engineers, engineering leaders and data scientists, apply here: https://monzo.com/careers/

For the past few months a small number of Monzo customers have opened their app and been prompted to use our basic banking experience, which is a key part of our Monzo emergency banking mode used if our primary banking platform is experiencing an outage. Monzo Stand-in is our answer to a regulatory challenge around critical suppliers, of which AWS is one. We now have a complete back-up bank (data, software, infra, etc.) that securely operates as a first class citizen of our production infrastructure meaning in the event of any major failure (e.g. we break production), this system will immediately stand-in to maintain customer service. Importantly, we're also able to partially invoke Stand-In so we can use individual components (e.g. just FPS inbound/outbound) in the case of limited primary platform/service outage. Monzo Stand-in has been running invisibly in the background for 6 months verifying the decisions it takes are fully consistent with our primary platform. As an illustration, that means that card payments are processed in both platforms simultaneously and our verification infrastructure substantiates decision consistency in realtime. During the past few months we’ve randomly selected a small population of customers to complete their task using our emergency mode, which is what customers see if they open the app if we’ve lost the primary platform. Every day a tiny group of customers are randomly selected to use the experience after which they will not be eligible again for another 5 years. Of course - if it's an inconvenient time, they can quickly and easily get out. Yes - we’re testing in production and I’m pleased that our data demonstrates that even this basic experience is good enough to solve customer’s needs. All these forms of continuous testing give confidence that our entire fallback infrastructure works, from the UI all the way down through our systems, infrastructure, networking and data. If you’re a Monzo customer and you open your app and see this - give it a run out, you might not see it again for 5 years. If you want to join us in going the extra mile to make banking magical, simple and reliable in the UK and beyond - I'm hiring engineers, engineering leaders and data scientists, apply here: https://monzo.com/careers/

For the past few months a small number of Monzo customers have opened their app and been prompted to use our basic banking experience, which is a key part of our Monzo emergency banking mode used if our primary banking platform is experiencing an outage. Monzo Stand-in is our answer to a regulatory challenge around critical suppliers, of which AWS is one. We now have a complete back-up bank (data, software, infra, etc.) that securely operates as a first class citizen of our production infrastructure meaning in the event of any major failure (e.g. we break production), this system will immediately stand-in to maintain customer service. Importantly, we're also able to partially invoke Stand-In so we can use individual components (e.g. just FPS inbound/outbound) in the case of limited primary platform/service outage. Monzo Stand-in has been running invisibly in the background for 6 months verifying the decisions it takes are fully consistent with our primary platform. As an illustration, that means that card payments are processed in both platforms simultaneously and our verification infrastructure substantiates decision consistency in realtime. During the past few months we’ve randomly selected a small population of customers to complete their task using our emergency mode, which is what customers see if they open the app if we’ve lost the primary platform. Every day a tiny group of customers are randomly selected to use the experience after which they will not be eligible again for another 5 years. Of course - if it's an inconvenient time, they can quickly and easily get out. Yes - we’re testing in production and I’m pleased that our data demonstrates that even this basic experience is good enough to solve customer’s needs. All these forms of continuous testing give confidence that our entire fallback infrastructure works, from the UI all the way down through our systems, infrastructure, networking and data. If you’re a Monzo customer and you open your app and see this - give it a run out, you might not see it again for 5 years. If you want to join us in going the extra mile to make banking magical, simple and reliable in the UK and beyond - I'm hiring engineers, engineering leaders and data scientists, apply here: https://monzo.com/careers/

Here's part 2 of "what I learned in Q2 24": 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 (𝗖𝗫) 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗿. For 20+ years now, I've heard the self-proclaimed "customer experiencists" tell us how important "the CX" is (like there's just one experience). From a banking experience, CX is in serious decline, and here's why: Consumers' financial lives now encompass so many providers (of accounts and tools--see my "Cameron and MacKenzie" picture) that any one FI (or financial provider) only controls a very small part of a consumer's overall "banking" (or "financial") experience. This is why Apple, Google, and even firms like Klarna are battling to be the primary point of financial management--not the "primary FI." What are banks' and credit unions' response to this? If you're JPMorganChase you fight head on w/ the Big Tech firms. If you're a community-based financial institution, though, you need to fight back with products--i.e., products that designed for particular niches and segments of the market. Some FIs I've talked get this (Northeast Credit Union), but most don't. Most are still going to market with a basic checking (i.e., payment) account, and trying to differentiate it with digital "access" (digital banking app). They then have to accept whatever digital banking features their vendor of choice provides with little ability to customize those features. For sure, there are technological hurdles here, but there's a management shortcoming at play: Lack of understanding of the product value ladder. Some smart consultant probably came up with a better label for this concept, but basically, it means that you have to continually enhance the value proposition of a product (and your product set) over time. Many tech vendors have a product roadmap for their products--which is good (although sometimes unrealistic)--but if they aren't figuring out how to increase and expand their value proposition over time, their growth prospects are diminished. Look at the history of Microsoft and Google. MS started as an operating system company (remember MS-DOS? you probably don't), Google started with a search engine. Both companies have failed miserably over time with many of their new product launches, but that hasn't stopped them from continuing to innovate on the product front, as they climb the product value ladder. Why don't financial institutions get this concept? The overwhelming majority of FIs seem content to offer a "checking account" differentiated by "their people and their service." Oh please. Differentiation through product design and value is where it's at today. FIs have ignored this for too long, choosing to chase the "differentiate through CX" mantra. #banking