Moneybox - Save and Invest 4+

I’m the worst when it comes to saving, and I saw this app and thought I’d give it a go. I was putting away around £40 a week away and then started increasing it to £50 then £60 or even odd amounts like £62. Every week I started to see my savings increase, it’s now become a sort of routine where I check my Moneybox app to see how my savings are growing every other day/week. I have the simple saver account and you can only withdraw once per month, so to stop me from withdrawing for no reason or because I wanted to go shopping when I didn’t need too I now make sure I withdraw £1 every 1st of the month so then that’s my withdrawal limit done, no matter what I have to wait until the following month if I want to withdraw and by that time I’m ok money wise, I always only withdraw £1 as that’s the minimum I think on the 1st of every month. So I’m saving every single week and not taking large withdrawals because I make sure I take that £1. It feels good to have money put away for anything in the future and it sort of gives you a good feeling knowing you’re doing ok money wise. At first it seems hard to save, but as you see your savings grow it’s a great feeling. I feel my only concern is Moneybox does not have Metro Bank as one of the banks they work with when it comes to round ups which is a shame. But I’m hoping that will change in the future. Meanwhile I’m ok saving like this. Thank you Moneybox ❤️

Hi there, thanks very much for taking the time to leave your lovely 5* review! This is really great feedback for us to hear, and we're pleased to have you on board and saving with us! We'll be sure to pass your Metro Bank feature request on to our team, who are working on setting up connections with new bank partners.

I never usually leave reviews but just had to for this app. If you were never taught about finances and saving money growing up, this app is a life-saver. There’s no financial jargon, everything is explained simply, very rewarding and makes it fun to save money! The customer service team are amazing, you can ask them anything and they get back to you very quickly, offering a friendly and clear explanation, without making you feel stupid for asking. The only negative reviews I see here are because people couldn’t immediately withdraw money or had fees for early withdrawal, that’s standard for long term savings accounts, especially ISAs. If you need short term, emergency savings then get a savings account you can always access and withdraw from as much as you like, most banks offer these. This app is best for longer term savings and I can’t fault it for that! The ‘simple saver’ lets you withdraw once a month which I think is great, it prevents you from dipping into it too much. Only addition I would love to see is if it could show another total which shows the total savings including the pending income 😊

Hi there - Thank you so much for your kind words and 5* review. We have also flagged your suggestion with our product team to determine whether this is something that we can do going forward.

After verifying my email nothing happened. Had to delete the app and log in to get started. Then, after opening a 32 notice account it configured itself with a £25 a week direct debit without my informed consent. I had only agreed to pay an initial £1 to open the account. I’m sure this sneaky behaviour breaks direct debit rules. I changed the weekly payment to £0 but then it tried to get me again. You have to edit “this week” otherwise it will still take £26 - that’s the £1 I agreed to plus £25 that I didn’t. After this experience I’m already thinking of closing the account and using a bank that doesn’t use deceptive tactics. Setting up a monthly deposit is not obvious enough and took me a while to find. You call a weekly deposit a “weekly deposit” but a monthly deposit is called a “payday boost”. Why not just call it a monthly deposit? There’s no way to send a payment, you have to configure a one off direct debit. Very slow and clunky way of going about things. I’m glad I didn’t open a LISA which I was planning to do as this app and bank are just not for me. Also when Night Shift is active the colours in the app don’t have enough contrast and cause eye strain. The app makes my phone run very hot and took me from 85% battery to 73% in just ten minutes! The icing on the cake is that Moneybox sent me a spam email this morning. I did NOT opt in to these.

Hi there, we're sorry to see your 1* review. The amount debited each week is according to your app settings, which are set up by the account holder only. We would never automatically set up payments for customers. If you could please drop us a DM with your email address, we'll investigate this for you ASAP. We'll also be able to take a look into this email for you, and let you know when you signed up for our marketing emails.

We really appreciate your feedback on our app design, and general user experience, as this is something we're always working on improving. We'll be sure to pass it over to the relevant team.