• Card improvements: a quick update!

Hi All,

So the other day we significantly improved cards. I think it's nice to have a quick update.

The stats

Although it's been less than a week we can already see it's a huge success:
- the number of failed payments decreased dramatically with 50% (that's FIFTY!)
- the number of support questions decreased significantly with 28%
- the number of chargeback requests and fraud investigations remained steady (around/near 0)

The thing we could have done better

We missed a valid usecase, mainly used by advanced bunq users: some used card whitelisting to re-route payments to a certain bank account. Although the numbers inidicate that this is not used by a huge group of users we do appreciate that this is our most advanced group. Therefore behind the scenes we are working hard to think of a user friendly way to re-introduce this.

My Christmas wish

Over the past weeks I've noticed that we get a lot of feedback, for which I'm very grateful. Without your help, without your insights bunq would never be as good as it is today. And without it it will never become as good as it can be. However, I've noticed that sometimes the feedback is unconstructive. Either because it attacks us personally ('stupid decisions', 'stupid people', 'shame on you', etc), or because it only takes considers the personal wishes of just a few.

I hope we all understand that at bunq we have the best at heart for the largest possible group of (potential) bunq users. We're working day and night (and that's literally in many cases) to make sure you all have the best possible experience there is.

A great example of someone who is really helpful is John Do. Although being an advanced user, he did take the mention of user-friendliness at heart. He cross-checked it with his wife and found out that we just might have a point :). Thanks for that John!

So if I may have a Christmas wish it's this: for all of us, especially those who are super active on together, to keep an eye on the big picture. To understand that bunq is here for a large group of people, so that we may make a significant change in the otherwise traditional banking industry. And to understand that we really appreciate, and in many ways really need, your help achieving that.

Thanks for being part of Bank of the Free,

Cheers,

Ali

    @Ali#38221

    ❤️@ali
    ❤️bunq
    ❤️bunqers
    ❤️@JohnDo

    I’m thrilled to hear you took user feedback to hearth and are constantly looking into improving the service. I’m thrilled to see another personal update from the commander in chief, I love to hear how rejected payments have declined (a personal irritation of mine) and I love all bunqers.

    My wish for Christmas; that bunq will become the best and most clean bank of the EU. And health, love, happiness and lots and lots of AFTSOA* for everyone.

    * Applepie For The Sake Of Applepie

      wow! Thanks for your message Ali and your acknowledgement of the usecase by advanced bunq users, of which I consider myself one.
      I hope you can find a intuitive way to bring these, and other lost features along the way, back to us, so everyone can use them.

        Good evening Ali 👋,
        Thanks for this post it made me really happy to read this, because this is the kind of openness and transparency that I love about bunq. :) Its amazing that the failed card payments percentage is dropping and that support now has more time :) I wanted to say sorry for something, I think my initial feedback could have been better. I can't wait to see what the future will bring and I wanted to thank you for not letting your advanced users down :-). Oh and now I can finally pay at Amazon without having to worry about the limits being to low. So thanks again, I think now that the waves in the ocean have flattened I can see the sky again.

        I wish you a nice evening,
        Timo

          @Ali#38221 While I agree that criticism can be more more constructive, and I personally support the simplification, what I miss in your post is that there is something else you could have done better:

          Communication, by giving advanced notice.

          It is ok to remove certain features. What is not ok is to remove features without any advance notice.

          This is not only about the rerouting payments, but also about other things that people have gotten used to, e.g. the dodgy payments limit.

          Isn't it reasonable to give e.g. one month notice before you remove a feature? Other banks do this as well...

            Really must say @Ali, that by just dropping an updatemessage like this now and then, confirms my feeling of belonging to the best bank I could have chosen. I am looking forward to new improvements on the already great bunq-app. I was one of those people who loved the rerouting options for reccuring payments, hopefully we will see it back in an even better way soon.
            Thanks for making bunq possible!

              Thank you so much for the update. My comments were not meant to be unconstructive although I feel addressed in some kind. I was thinking of commenting on bunq together for a long time and decided to comment because the communication, in my opinion, was far from optimal.

              As a developer I understand that features get removed if they are not used by the majority of the users, as you have to maintain and develop them, but I think the removal has to be communicated in advance. I wouldn't have been as disappointed as I was if this would have been communicated.

              I want to thank you and all of the bunq members anyways for creating bunq and making the banking industry a better place.

                I know that it is a aweful thing to do getting personal in critics or insult the people behind bunq or the product but I guess that only shows how much the people actually care about bunq. Yes it’s no excuse and free pass to say whatever you want in whatever „language“ but people show they care about the product and carry it in their hearts 🥰. Otherwise people wouldn’t even bother to give feedback at all and just switch banks like they do with normal banks.

                Luckily bunq is not like any other bank out there and we all know that you guys are doing an awesome job and we all want to thank you for that.

                Maybe you could just improve the together platform a little bit further for people to see why you made certain decisions. Like introduce a whole new section where upcoming/planned changes are up for vote and every user gets one want either to keep or to remove a certain feature and actually show how many people voted for yes and no. Because as of right now we always only see the high fives. Like when I started the discussion about the whole whitelisting in the first place lots of people high fived it and it looked like lots of people don’t like that features but we never got to see how many people actually do like it.

                Maybe getting a poll system where everyone can or has to vote ... or introduce a thumb up and down system. No longer just high five a topic also give a thumbs down if you don’t like a topic.

                I sill love bunq. We all do.

                  I had some problems accepting a payment from Adobe to my Mastercard, it took 4 failed attempts and a lot of online searching. So I welcomed the change. But then I saw the reactions of users saying the change actually killed a feature they used and love (routing payments to different accounts) and I thought "Wow, that is a cool feature, I never knew it existed." And here it is, a message from bunq saying this feature will probably be re-implemented. It's all good.

                    Great stats and a nice update from your end Ali.

                    However, the take-away (thing that could have been better) shouldn’t be that a valid use-case was missed. It’s about the way updates and new features are introduced. I do like the element of surprise with bunq, but introducing updates cold turkey sometimes breaks peoples processing methods. That’s fine if this was a meaningless product, but if it’s your bank the impact is different.

                    Further I agree with your post (from getting more constructive feedback, to the shout-out to John) and I’m glad we’ve got some more clarification on this subject.

                      @R#38246 I agree with you: Banking is an crucial service and should not come with such big, unpredictable changes every few months. It was just "surprising" while it only affected features I was not using, but now the continuous changes regarding the limit handling have been a bit annoying, at least for me.

                      So for me to feel a bit more safe and future-proof, bunq has to either slow down their development speed (I don't really like this) or (my favourite) start communicating those changes before implementing them, so that we as customers get the ability to maybe influence some of bunqs decisions.

                        @Ali#38221 Thank you! Thank for your openness! And transparency! This is the kind of communication that matters. This is what differentiates Bunq from everyone else. This honesty. And thought & motivation. Your message allows me to empathise with you and with your decisions!

                        Like what René said:

                        "It’s about the way updates and new features are introduced"

                        Communicating what problem you're trying to solve, and why you've chosen to do it the way you did before the update arrives is all that's needed.

                        In another post I recall reading your concern about making the message digestible to everyone. It's not possible. Suggestion: Have a technical blog / update channel for advanced users to subscribe to? And a simple digest summary for basic users.

                        For example, taking your message from earlier:

                        Simplified limits
                        bunq has a strong coders background. Being in that mindset when we started, we overengineered our card limits. Thanks to your feedback we have come to see this and we have been working behind the scenes to greatly simplify our limits. Check out the new limits here <LINK>.

                        Read up on Technical Background here <LINK>

                        And when following the Technical Background link, something like:

                        One of the problems we're seeing is a significant number of failed payments due to various user-set limits, and our support teams are spending a lot of time trying to help users with these. By simplifying our limits, we hope to reduce, or perhaps even eliminate the majority failed payments. Each of these are painful for both our users, and our support staff.

                        While the configurability of our limits is the most advanced anyone as brought to market, they're complicated and confusing for most users. It takes a power user to to able to use these limits. Trying to find a balance between usability and advanced features is a difficult challenge, and as a Bank that's pushing innovation to it's limits, we're still needing to find that sweet spot.

                        What this means for users is combining all limits related to a card, into a single daily "card limit".

                        An obvious concern is increased fraudulent attempts. We always keep an eye on these, and also use fraud investigation requests as a key metric. We do not want to compromise your security.

                        Feedback, as always, welcome!

                          Thanks for the quick update Ali. Thanks for acknowledging the re-route use case and tackling it . Looking forward to the solution. Bet you guys will make it awesome.

                            Amazing! Thank you Ali.

                            It’s a shame bunq is being attacked in this kind of way. Some people really don’t understand how much time and effort (and not to forget money) goes into a project like this. Let’s help bunq, instead of flaming them. We all want the same thing, a great money experience. You are not going to find a group more dedicated to do this than bunq. Give this amazing team the credit and support it deserves, so we can all enjoy the best banking experience in the world.

                            Keep up the good work 🌈 🙌🏻

                              @Ali#38221 Keep up the good job!

                                Hi 👋🏼 @Ali

                                Thnx for open communication and for the compliment 👍👌.

                                Also good to read that this update had a big positive impact according to the stats! 👍

                                I may not always agree with every single thing bunq does, but that’s all in the game. I understand that bunq isn’t making a app just for me 😉. But as long a we all keep a open and positive dialogue is is going to be just fine.

                                So, keep up the good and hard work. And keep us amazed! #canwaitforupdate9

                                also thank you @Arjan#38222 ❤️👍🏼

                                  I am looking forward for all the great things that willl come! I am currently moving bit by bit to bunq :).

                                    • FMaster

                                      • Post #22
                                      • Edited

                                      Those are some nice stats!

                                      Like the others have already posted, the main problem is in the communication. Yes also from customers to bunq; we can be harsh in voicing our opinion. However, that tone is caused by sudden unexpected changes to crucial areas of our workflows. More of a defensive wtf cry rather than a direct attack towards the people at bunq.

                                      Personally I have to live with tight budgets and the routing of recurring payments has become crucial in keeping the money flow in line, without becoming a Scrooge watching every cent. With the automatic routing to my budget accounts I simply cannot spend more than I actually have. When a budget is dry at the recurring tx I become aware that I quickly need to make adjustments. A nice way to prevent debt 💰. Dedicated budgeting apps and the like are too slow for this, because they either require me to keep checking them and the connected ones only process transactions after they happened. Only the bank itself can decline transactions before they happen, and bunq did.

                                      Being a tech company bunq should be familiar with the practice of announcing breaking changes. Either by deprecation notices in the release notes or with semantic versioning, bumping the major version when the interface breaks. That way there is time to make adjustments before going along with the new release. The release notes of the app updates did not announce any feature deprecations in advance, neither did any of bunq‘s posts on Together. It was just forced upon us without a notice, disguised as a big improvement, but seriously breaking money management flows. Even when the stats show it is not as commonly used, there are people using it. A friendly heads up would be extremely appreciated and limit the amount of negative feedback after the release.

                                      (edit: typos)