Monzo/Starling Banking/Revolut

String said:
Starling have started to introduce Wonga type loans, which has put me off them a little bit. There's also been as few issues with duplicate payments for some people and I have personally seen payments show on the wrong day (I thought I'd been double charged at one point).

I've scaled back my use of the card until I'm a bit more confident in it's suitability for everyday use.
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trust me when I say this is not the Starling card at fault. I work in IT for a well known high street retailer and we've recently been upgrading all the devices to high value contactless and there seems to be a connection/speed issue between the online transaction suppliers. First request for payment hits the other end and other end respond but it doesn't get back. Second request hits and returns fine. People think they are being charged twice, but all that has happened is they have requested payment twice but only one will settle. It takes the banks several days to reapply the balance to your account. This has happened with loads of different card vendors.
 
String said:
I'm happy to retract the Wonga part, but if Starling want to compete with the high street banks then 11% is high. Even used car salesmen will get it to around 8%.
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But a car salesman will use a broker? Probably what Starling will do?

Until they are the size of say Halifax etc, I wouldn't touch a loan or mortgage from them personally.
 
String said:
Starling have started to introduce Wonga type loans, which has put me off them a little bit. There's also been as few issues with duplicate payments for some people and I have personally seen payments show on the wrong day (I thought I'd been double charged at one point).

I've scaled back my use of the card until I'm a bit more confident in it's suitability for everyday use.
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The duplicate payments isn't Starling issue though it's affected a number of Banks.

The loans make sense. Other than lending there's no way for the company to make money. They don't have an investment arm.

None of these digital banks or challengers have ever made a profit even when just running pre-pay cards. Revolut is closest, it broke even recently and have the most customers. It also have charges for various things plus the 'premium' account. Monzo now has around 900,000 customers, and secured around £700m in funding in total. No where near breaking even though.

Cashplus, which many times more massive than these does turn a profit and have applied for a banking licence, so that's interesting. IIRC one of the main banks is looking at launching a digital only account soon too.

Exciting times in banking and fintech for sure.
 
englishpremier said:
The duplicate payments isn't Starling issue though it's affected a number of Banks.

The loans make sense. Other than lending there's no way for the company to make money. They don't have an investment arm.

None of these digital banks or challengers have ever made a profit even when just running pre-pay cards. Revolut is closest, it broke even recently and have the most customers. It also have charges for various things plus the 'premium' account. Monzo now has around 900,000 customers, and secured around £700m in funding in total. No where near breaking even though.

Cashplus, which many times more massive than these does turn a profit and have applied for a banking licence, so that's interesting. IIRC one of the main banks is looking at launching a digital only account soon too.

Exciting times in banking and fintech for sure.
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Interesting points but with Starling, Monza companies is their end game to make make profit or to build a proven infrastructure and that cash out similar to WhatsApp? I used to know a few people in that industry and certainly from a loyalty wallet perspective the end game is to cash out.
 
englishpremier said:
IIRC one of the main banks is looking at launching a digital only account soon too.

Exciting times in banking and fintech for sure.
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Haven't the old skool banks made online "digital only" banks in the past? Halifax had Intelligent Finance (IF), Co-op had Smile, Abbey National had Cahoot to name a few. All long gone now I believe apart from maybe a watered down Smile bank.
 
The older banks' more friendly brands were never fully digital, and they still relied on the old banks infrastructure.

Take First Direct for example. Some new applicants are asked to go to a solicitor to get a signed copy their passport then post it to First Direct. Hardly digital.

I don't think the traditional banks have it in them to come up with a truly digital alternative. Credit cards, yes, but a truly digital current account and all that entails. I think they are a long way off.

To that end as menioted by @Jimbeam3678 I expect some of the new digital entrants will be bought out. BBVA for example already own a nice chunk of Atom (39%).
 
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Well, I'm impressed again with Starling. My first venture abroad with it and just drew money from an ATM. I exchanged some currency before I left (I'm in France so Euros) and got a rate of 1.05. This was from Sainsburys and all the others were similar. Just got 1.12 from Starling. The Pound may have strengthened that much in 3-4 days but I doubt it. So yea, impressed.
 
Looking at getting either a Monzo or Starling account. Will probably only use when abroad but depending on how it goes may switch to it long term.

Which one do people prefer? Are there any things which one does and the other doesn’t?

Quite like the idea of the coin jar on Monzo
 
For usage abroad Starling is the clear winner due to the fact that it doesn't charge for withdrawing cash from ATMs. Monzo didn't used to, but it then went back on a promise and started charging over a certain amount.

As it was looking for more funding, I imagine things like that were required to show investors that it's not haemorrhaging money.

That being said I doubt you can go wrong with either really.
 
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