Customer Privacy Notice

Who are we?

• if you use our community forum on our website, see our Monzo Community Forum Privacy Notice.

• if you get a Monzo business account, see our Business Customer Privacy Notice. For information about how we use cookies, please read our Cookie Notice.

• Chat with us through the app or send us an email at help@monzo.com.

• Write to us at Monzo, Broadwalk House, 5 Appold Street, London, EC2A 2DA, UK.

The information we hold about you, and how we use it 👀

Information you give us through the Monzo app

When you sign up for a Monzo account

• Personal details like your name, date and place of birth.

• Contact details like your home address (and previous addresses), email and phone number.

• Information about your identity, such as a copy of your ID document, a short video of yourself.

• Information about your right to live in the UK and your tax residency.

• Financial details, such as your employment status and the industry you work in, annual Income, number of dependents, residential status and monthly housing costs.

When you sign up for or use our services

• Details you give us when you sign up for a specific service, like your National Insurance number if you open an Individual Savings Account (ISA). If you apply for credit, we’ll ask for details about your financial circumstances and reasons for borrowing.

• Details you give us which we pass to our partners when you let us know you’re interested in their services (like energy switching).

• Information you give us through Monzo chat.

• Answers you give to surveys about Monzo and our services.

Information we collect or generate if you get in touch

• The phone number you’re calling from and information you give us during the call (we record all calls).

• The email address you use and the contents of your email (and any attachments).

• Public details from your social media profile (like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter) if you reach out to us via these platforms, and the contents of your messages or posts to us.

Information we collect or generate when you use the app and our services

• details about payments to and from your Monzo account, your savings activity (using Pots) and any overdrafts or loans you take out

• details about services from us and our partners that you express interest in

• details about how you use our app

• all the countries you're a tax resident in and your Tax Identification Number for each one.

Information we collect from your phone

• mobile network and operating system, so we can analyse how our app works and fix any issues

• IP address and device ID (we’ll link your mobile phone number with your device)

• mobile advertising ID, so we can share it with companies that help us with advertising online (you can reset this ID or limit tracking in ‘Settings’ on your phone)

• location if you’ve authorised tracking, so we can help protect you against fraud

• phone contacts who use Monzo, if you activate Payments with Friends, and they do too (we don’t store your full address book).

Information we get from external sources

• credit reference agencies to verify your identity and check if we can offer you an overdraft and manage business risk (this is a 'soft search' and won’t impact your credit score). If you take out a loan or turn on your overdraft for the first time, we do a full search (which may impact your credit score)

• fraud prevention agencies and KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) service providers to fulfil our legal duties.

• official public records, like the Electoral Register or Companies’ House

• information published by the press or on social media.

Our reasons for using your information 🔍

• consider your application

• give you the services we agreed to in line with our terms and conditions

• send you messages about your account and other services you use if you get in touch, or we need to tell you about something

• exercise our rights under contracts we’ve entered into with you, like managing, collecting and recovering money you owe us

• investigate and resolve complaints and other issues.

• confirm your identity when you sign up or get in touch

• check your record at immigration and fraud prevention agencies

• prevent illegal activities like money laundering, tax evasion and fraud

• check your credit history and ask about your reasons for applying for an arranged overdraft or loan, and other details about your financial circumstances so that we can make responsible lending decisions

• keep records of information we hold about you in line with legal requirements

• adhere to banking laws and regulations (these mean we sometimes need to share customer details with regulators, tax authorities, law enforcement or other third parties)

• compare information we hold about your account with your tax residency information to make sure we don’t have a reason to doubt it.

• check your record at credit reference agencies when you sign up to see if we can offer you an overdraft or a loan (this is a soft check)

• tell you about products and services through the app or other channels, like social media companies, based on how you use our products and services and other information we hold about you. We may also exclude ads on this basis. We do this so we can make sure our marketing is useful. That includes instructing platforms to show or not show Monzo adverts to existing customers. We don’t share any other identifying information about you with social media companies than your mobile advertising ID (unless you’ve disabled it)

• track, analyse and improve the services we give you and other customers and how you respond to ads we show. We may ask for feedback if you’ve shown interest in a service. We do this so that we can make our products better and understand how to market them

• use the personal information you share with us and data you create from using the app to suggest Monzo features or products you’d find useful. It's in your control if you want us to stop, just ahead over to the App and opt-out.

• share insights with the public about spending, saving or borrowing trends based on data that doesn’t personally identify you

• don’t sell any of this information.

• show where you were when you bought something with Google maps (in the Monzo app) and send you travel reports when you’re abroad (we tell this from transaction data, not by tracking your phone)

• give you reports on how you’ve spent and/or saved money using Monzo (‘Spending Reports’ and ‘Year in Monzo’)

• personalise your visual experience in the Monzo app, like choosing a picture for your virtual loan card based on what you’ve told us you’ll use the loan for.

• protect the rights, property or safety of us, our customers or others

• carry out security and maintenance checks to make sure our app, website and other services run smoothly for you

• manage Monzo’s business risk and financial affairs, and protect our customers and staff

• share information with credit bureaus and fraud prevention agencies so we can benefit from up-to-date information when we make decisions about accounts or loans. This helps us make responsible lending decisions and fight financial crime

• share your name, title and account number with other banks and building societies, so that people making payments to you can confirm the name they have for you matches the name we hold in our records. This helps us fight financial crime.

• share your information with companies that so they can help us provide our services (see ‘Who we share your data with’ below).

• record any issues you want us to know about so we understand how to best support you. (If the information is sensitive, we need a second lawful basis, see ‘Our reasons for using special category information’ below.)

• tell you about our products and services, and those of our partners by email or push notification if we think they’re of interest to you. You can unsubscribe from these by email or via the app. (If you don’t want to see lending promotions in the app, you can opt out in your app ‘Settings’.)

• help protect you against fraud by tracking the location of your phone if you’ve authorised it (iOS)

• show your profile picture in the app if you add one

• show your profile picture and name to Monzo contacts in their app if you turn on ‘Payments with Friends’, provided they’ve stored your phone number. (If you pay someone, they’ll see your name regardless of whether or not you’ve turned on Payments with Friends. It’s our legal duty to show this, so it isn’t something you can opt out of.)

• share information about you with companies we work with when we need your permission (see ‘Who we share your data with’ below).

Our reasons for using special category information

• use facial recognition technology to identify people who use our services in the Monzo app. We do this because it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest to prevent or detect unlawful acts

• record information about your health if it’s necessary to protect your economic well-being if you’re at risk, and seeking consent would be unreasonable or negatively impact our ability to help you.

Who we share your data with 🤝

• companies that make our Monzo cards

• card producers and networks, like MasterCard

• Know Your Customer (KYC) service providers that help us with identity verification or fraud checks like Jumio and Onfido

• cloud computing power and storage providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud

• our business intelligence and analytics platform provider Looker

• companies that help us with functional analytics (to help us solve technical issues with the app for instance)

• companies that help us with marketing (but we won’t share identifiable personal data with third parties for their own direct marketing unless you give us permission, and you can opt out any time)

• software companies that we use for emailing you like Front, or for processing and storing email communications with you like Intercom

• companies that help us with customer support (like Sykes and our subsidiaries)

• companies that help us with fraud prevention

• companies that offer benefits or rewards through special programmes you sign up to via the app

• companies that print written statements and notices

• companies that manage our CCTV and security if you visit our offices.

• your name, address and date of birth

• accounts you have, including when you opened them and money going into them (if you owe us money, we’ll also share your balance)

• credit applications you’ve made and limits you’ve turned on

• if you’ve borrowed, details of your loan and repayments (like whether you repay in full and on time)

• fraud prevention information.

• verify your identity and make sure what you’ve told us is true

• help detect and prevent fraud and money laundering

• assess whether you can afford to make repayments if you borrow

• manage your account with us

• trace and recover debts

• make sure our offers are relevant for you.

• companies that introduce their own services via the Monzo app, like energy switching, insurance or remortgaging

• other customers you want to set up joint Monzo accounts with

• other apps

• other banks if you use account switching or aggregation services

• people you’ve asked to represent you, like solicitors.

• authorities that spot and stop financial crime, money laundering, terrorism and tax evasion if the law says we have to, or if it’s necessary for other reasons

• the police, courts or dispute resolution bodies if we have to

• other banks to help trace money if you’re a victim of fraud or other crimes or if there’s a dispute about a payment

• any other third parties where necessary to meet our legal obligations.

Monzo Plus and Monzo Premium

• Assurant’s Privacy Notice (phone insurance)

• Axa’s Privacy Notice (travel insurance)

• LoungeKey’s Privacy Notice (airport lounge access)

When we make automated decisions 📲

• we can give you a Monzo account based on your age, residency, nationality, financial position and other circumstances, like the results of anti-money laundering and sanctions checks

• we can give you an arranged overdraft or loan based on information we hold about you, and information we get from credit reference agencies. This includes details on whether you’ve kept up to date with payments on any credit accounts, and if you’ve been to court

• we need to take action, like freeze a transaction or account, because we suspect fraud or money-laundering against Monzo or a customer. Our computers decide this based on patterns in our data, like an account or policy being used in a way that fraudsters work

• our services and products, or those of companies we work with, are suitable for you so that we can tailor our marketing.

How long we keep your information 📁

Your rights ✅

• access the personal data we hold about you, or to get a copy of it

• ask for a copy of your personal data in a portable (machine-readable) format or make us send it to someone else

• make us correct inaccurate data

• ask us to delete, 'block' or suppress your data, though for legal reasons we might not always be able to do it

• say no to us using your data for direct marketing and in certain other ‘legitimate interest’ circumstances

• withdraw any consent you’ve given us

• ask a member of staff to review a computer-made (automated) decision.

Where we store or send your data 🔒

• the European Commission says the country or organisation has adequate data protection, or

• we’ve agreed standard data protection clauses approved by the European Commission with the organisation.

How to make a complaint 😔

Changes to this notice 📝