Monese adds charge for debit card top-ups

Bad news for anyone using the account to earn Halifax Rewards.

From December onwards you’ll be charged 0.3% every time you use a debit card to top up the balance on your Monese current account.

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What is Monese?

Monese is a digital challenger bank that offers an app-only current account. It’s been a useful addition to my wallet as you’re able to add money to the account using another bank’s debit card. It also offers monthly discounts on gift cards to customers, often up to 20%.

This charge has been added to the free “Simple” Monese account. The paid for “Classic” version of Monese still offers free transfers and costs £5.95 a month.

Why this matters to Halifax customers?

The top-up feature has been handy to take advantage of the Halifax Rewards current account. That account requires a £500 spend on its debit card every month to trigger a £5 reward (more on this here).

Using Monese for this payment meant you could spend on a cashback debit card (such as Chase) or stooze on a credit card without moving any spending to Halifax itself. And since November you’ve been able to have three Reward accounts, potentially increasing the required spend to total of £1,500.

With this charge for top-ups to Monese, you’d now pay £1.50 per £500 you add.

Alternatives

Though spending £1.50 to earn £5 isn’t the end of the world, it’s best avoided. You can still use Revolut to do a similar top up for free. Or you can send money to saving accounts from Yorkshire Building Society, Skipton Building Society or NS&I.

You can transfer money from another bank to Monese for free using your sort code and account number. Though this won’t work for the Halifax Reward hack, it will allow you to add money to the account for the gift card offers.