Even looking at Gotthard tunnel is rather bad because it's just a tunnel though in very difficult conditions and large as you say is a bad comparison against a new railway network under a densely populated city.
Crossrail is large in the context it has new stations, depots, extensions, trains, and the very large amount of traffic it is expected to take under a very short construction period.
Looking at the entire picture doesn't make the number seem ridiculously high. If it seems to high you need to look at where it's all going its not just for a tunnel.
Crossrail is the 4th most costly 'megaproject' involving transport both under construction and 4th including all completed projects. There isn't any way to look at it where it isn't one of the world's largest construction projects unless you start looking at space stations and if cities were 'megaprojects'
> On a per-unit sold basis, Tesla Model S is wildly profitable, with a gross margin north of 30% [1]. However, they are obviously still in startup mode, so they reinvest all of those earnings along with investor capital into improving the business.
They would still report a profit under this scenario.
Didn't know they were free in 1999. It doesn't look like banks will start charging for transfers though, it's certainly not free to get customers. It can also be withdrawn as cash immediately as its received ;), even today Paypal takes a bit of time to withdraw outside of the UK.
> Nutmeg
Not easy to do as it has to be a seperate entity. Im working on a startup like Nutmeg. Also the 2008 landscape changes in what Banks want to be makes them avoid this space. Investments are a bit investment bankingey for the ordinary person.
> Transferwise
These eat into their margins, why would they do that? They already have customers willing to pay more. Transferwise can't get everyone as an audience that most banks serve, though it will get some of them.
> Zopa
Banks are apparently participating in these marketplaces. Granted they haven't created any marketplaces, though.
> Yodlee supplies APIs already
The bank's API allows transfers, takes 1 second and doesn't need a username or password. No need for those token things either. Yodlee's big problem is they screen scrape (or use the banking api the bank provides which you can get without paying) and it can take up to 5 mins to do this.
They use OAuth so its like the 'login with facebook' type authentication where the authentication is delegated back to the bank.
Banks do innovate but they're interested in things that improve banking and focusing on that. They're not interested in the old pre 2008 model of banking.
Yeah thinking about the 1.5% fee thing they probably don't have that because its routed through Wirecard (German firm) and they've just put mondo branding on it.
I hardly think the banks are slow. I've lived in Australia, South Africa & Canada. By any measure the UK banks (except a few) are really quick in adapting to change. If ours are slow the ones there are Glacial.
I guess if you look at Fintech in breadth, the big players aren't interested in doing everything, just a handful of small things really well and very profitably. It's a bit harsh to say they're not doing enough faster by judging them against non banking startups.
I guess it seems like alot of these services are unbundling banks but it's just a handful like Transferwise. The 'core' banking features are hard to unbundle. I guess P2P lending is sort of a unbundle in a way but its at a different vertical.
To put it another way I guess: What are UK banks missing that is available elsewhere that would improve banking services (besides customer support), or even more generally?
1) No fees using the card abroad. Exchange rate 'at cost'.
2) No fees using any ATM to withdraw cash (AKAIK when I asked the Mondo guys)
3) Instant notifications when you make a purchase and the ability to switch on and switch off the card. So you're never blocked when you purchase Christmas presents and weirdly spend more one week.
4) They have a nicer app that helps you track how you're spending and your habits are changing. They've even managed to put in logos for each merchant. I know that's hard because I've done it for my startup -(for example a mom and pop pharmacy)
5) Easy integration into transferwise and other apps where you can get loans from banks in a marketplace so you get the best deal. In general there's a whole lot of benefits to the APIification mondo offers. It avoids doing what everyone does by just sending you off and integrating with others who do something better.. Credit Cards? Loans? FX transfers. While I don't know the details this is what I got from their marketplace vision.
6) Sign up using something like Jumio, or Jumio? (Not sure i don't have Mondo, wish I did- so if you're reading this give it to me!) so it takes 30 seconds and no need to visit a branch.
Ultimately its your choice but they have a pretty cool thing they're building.
I might want to point out I have nothing to do with Mondo. I love their idea but the way you asked that question suggests I may be implying that, but I don't have anything to do with them.
If you ask the bank they'll let you use it. I's still in a sort of beta phase but all UK banks have to have them soon under a HM treasury directive on 'Open Banking'.
I like there's absolute no fees when using the debit card abroad and you get the exchange rate 'at cost'. There's a building society that does this but it needs 5k or 500 a month in deposits
I absolutely love that because I visit my family quite often and I'm usually ripped off with fees.
I heard about them when they were applying for their license and just felt lots of people would find it appealing. While it is making less money they save a lot too.
One thing that's quite nice about what they're doing, and rather profitable is the OD system.
With a credit card you have a seperate account, so when you get cash it doesn't have to pay off the card.
With mondo it is a debit card with a current account which can overdraft and interest rates near a credit card (19.9% according to their papers)
This means there's less risk for them and a smaller chance of NPLs as money needs to be paid off to the OD before the account is positive.
While a normal bank can take this view in the aggregate term of a customer's account it encourages the user to engage in more risk taking where the customer can't pay it back.
So you get less risk and the same interest rate.
That being said they do save a lot on software building it in house contrary to hiring someone external to do it for them. If Oracle's standard margin are any indication there's a lot lost this way in terms of cost.
I got stuck on their annoying typeform. I was on my mobile and agree wasn't clicking properly it kept going back. Then I was too late. So.. it could be worse!
This is hardly true. The UK is one of the only countries which has a couple of simple features in banking no other country has:
- Instant, Free transfers, including from one bank to another. Even on weekends & holidays.
- APIs currently available (under the UK open banking government guidelines)
- Pay to mobile phones (not that cool).
- Debit via a Debit Card out of the Mastercard network (costs something like 6p per transaction or something, not sure of the details but there's no fixed fee)
There are also a couple of other things like their fraud systems in how you can unblock your card without having to call customer sevice. Granted its an annoying robocall.
Some customers also have authentication by voice from recordings via customer service calls.
All this is in addition to what everyone else has we take for granted: Pinsentry, NFC, Chip and Pin.
The list is quite long, but I hardly think the UK banks aren't innovators. By any measure they're doing a good job.
Also check out Barclay's accelerator where they lend out their banking license to startups.
> What remains to be seen is whether Mondo will make money in the way a traditional bank does.
If their £1m in debit card spending is anything to go by they already have roughly £15k in the bank from Acq Bank revenue from Mastercard. This is just in alpha in 3 months with 200? users.
They won't have a single branch either, unlike these others (or their parents). Apart from Atom they're the only ones like this.
Monese and FFREES aren't even banks by definition either.
I've been following Mondo for ages the only true bank like it is Atom & Starling. Starling isn't exactly in the same category though. Someone made a graphic to show the differences. Not sure if I can find that.
What they did is essentially handle crowdcube's load.
They couldn't take all of them at once so they made an app that could and sent the links to the first 1m pledged users gradually, so not as to crash their servers.
But it is far from dishonest, when you pledge to crowdcube they don't take the money anyway, at least until after the round is over.
Also a few people got in on Monday so they actually raised a bit more than 1m, the last few on crowdcube with the links valid links wont get through.
In addition to those that don't get a chance to invest there's a whole line of people above the 1m..
Tried in 4 countries, Australia included. Granted its better and worse at times it is consistently worse off than using fb (via web browser), Telegram (Mac app) & Whatsapp (web app). They have a better architecture under the hood it looks like.
If the devs tracked startup times, they would know what exactly i'm talking about.
I try to avoid it because its such a tease trying to get it just load up. To put things into perspective it's faster to load up Facebook with a web browser and just chat with that than to load the Mac Slack app.
It's cool they have those funky loading messages but its just too slow.
Might point out im in Australia and latency is a bit higher. I noticed the same thing in a few African countries.
While latency is higher by a hundred or so milliseconds the loading time is significantly slower. This too on a line that is 99.4%+ better than the average.
It is badly engineered. I had a look at the inner workings and first off they use a web app in a native wrapper, second their websocket negotiation process has a lot of going back and forth just to get started.
I never realised the NBBO could cross because of HFT. (Technically a market type order is required to prevent this, but the quote stuffing lags price) Definitely seems wrong.
Crossrail is large in the context it has new stations, depots, extensions, trains, and the very large amount of traffic it is expected to take under a very short construction period.
Looking at the entire picture doesn't make the number seem ridiculously high. If it seems to high you need to look at where it's all going its not just for a tunnel.