Monzo’s gambling block feature ups the ante with open banking – Business Insider

The UK neobank has teamed up with open banking provider TrueLayer to enhance the reach of its popular gambling block feature, Crowdfund Insiderreports.

While Monzo customers can currently turn on a gambling block to prevent the usage of their card for payments to gambling companies, some gambling providers are shifting toward open banking-powered payments. TrueLayer will now use an API call to notify Monzo when a customer attempts to make an open banking payment to a gambling firm. Monzo can then prevent the completion of the payment if that customer has their gambling block activated.

Solid demand for spending limit capabilities has prompted incumbents and neobanks alike to add them to their personal finance management suites to drive customer acquisition and loyalty. The ability to set spending limits more broadly for a credit or debit card is popular: More than half (53%) of respondents to Insider Intelligence's UK Mobile Banking Competitive Edge 2020 survey called that capability "extremely" or "very" valuable.

And demand for gambling blocks more specifically is driving banks to offer them: HSBCaddeda self-restricting gambling block feature in November 2019, while Starlingenhancedits own tool with a 48-hour switch-off delay in March, for example. Monzo stated that its block, which has existed since 2018, has over 275,000 usersrepresenting 5.5% of Monzo's approximately 5 million totalclients.

The enhanced gambling block is one of several initiatives Monzo has pursued recently centered on its customers' financial health.In addition to broadening its own gambling block, Monzo this week alsocalledfor UK regulators to ensure that consumers have wider access to gambling blocks. And earlier this month, the neobank announced a partnership with Experian to offer customers access to Experian Boost, a service that leverages open banking to improve credit scores,perAltFi.

Experian Boost factors in a broader range of transactional data into credit scores than does traditional credit scoring, including money earned and spent, council tax payments, savings and investments, and subscription payments to services like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime.

These efforts that help clients stay on top of their financial health may not create competitive advantages for Monzogambling blocks are increasingly popular among UK banks and other neobanks can also integrate Experian's solutionbut they could increase existing customer loyalty as clients see Monzo taking action to help them improve their financial lives.

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Monzo's gambling block feature ups the ante with open banking - Business Insider