None of it is particularly good away from the ethical side. It’s why I was hoping Algbra would consider changing their mind about being a real bank. Tridos has a great ethos but it’s beyond legacy, I’m not sure they even offer faster payments.
Back to Algbra; I have to concur. Their initial message seemed good, and I did make a comment a while back noting that I hoped that their initial funding didn’t just get spiffed up the wall on fancy events. They have potential, but I can’t see them making it out of 24 alive. There’s just nothing different enough about them for me to think they will.
Is there any bank not offering lounge access? It’s now sold with package holiday deals and at this point the main terminal will be emptier than the lounge.
The monthly charge is ethical though – Triodos being honest about what it costs to provide you a service. If you “want to get serious about ethical banking” Triodos is literally right there showing you what that looks like.
They do get busy but still offer a better experience than the main terminal. No hard plastic seats and no £10 for a ham and cheese sandwich with a bottle of water.
Wouldn’t pay for it (on top of a card fee) though.
Yep- and I accept that (and don’t have a fundamental ‘charging upfront for banking is outrageous!’ issue) but the downside of the charge at the moment for me is that I’m not 100% sure of switching to them (and from other comments, there’s other issues with their service) so do I risk paying for an account that I decide after a few weeks there’s too many negative points to in using the service, or stay where I am and just keep an eye on their service and feedback on it until they seem to have updated their tech stack to offer a better service?
Somewhere, (I might google it) there was a list of ‘ethical/sustainable’ banks in which, at the time, Monzo and Starling both scored fairly highly (not as high as Triodos or Co-op) but that was mainly because at the time, neither Monzo or Starling lent to ‘problematic’ industries. Starling’s probably dropped down the list as a major shareholder is one of the Gulf states I believe.
At the moment, my ‘money shuffle’ is salary paid to Starling and most bills are paid from there (there’s a few left in Monzo because I need to actually call up and speak to someone like some 18th century pleb to get them to change a DD over) → spending money lump sum goes to Chase to qualify for the cashback but then it’s ‘drip feed’ into Algbra to actual get their rewards. This way, if there is an issue with Algbra, at least I’ve got a back-up (even if it is probably one of the least ethical/sustainable banks there is!).
I know this is an Algbra thread, but as a user of both it’s worth noting that Google Pay with Triodos is easily done via Curve’s free level. @qwango_uk
Algbra for my D2D personal spending.
Triodos is our household shopping account.
Algbra is my D2D because of the cash back really. And they’re never going to do interest I think because they run on Islamic principles.
Couldn’t they just do ‘expected profit rate’ like Al Rayan?
Also how have you liked Triodos so far? What’s their app like (looks pretty clean from their website)?
Tried to join them before but they kept insisting I sent them a certified bank statement, wouldn’t accept my Starling one since I printed it myself, also wouldn’t take the one I got from Nationwide in-person since it was in black and white.
@louismiles04 I’ve had an account for years so don’t know their sign up rules now, but it was OK back then.
It’s all a bit basic (no pots, analytics etc) but app functionality is better than some, for example you can create SO which you can’t with Smile etc.
Messages are web only, but you login with a QR code from the app which is a good idea.
Doesn’t do faster payments but I can usually wait a few minutes.
Google Pay via Curve.
Don’t think the app has ever gone down.
Famously difficult to find a Starling branch, don’t they know?!
I would’ve escalated and asked Triodos to explain what exactly they wanted me to do, being that Starling only provides certified copies of statements through its app.
It’s a shame. If you’re into basic, ethical banking Triodos has a lot going for it.
It’s slow. Not dissimilar from the cashback experience with Monzo that’s frequently aired in the cashback thread on here.
I imagine it’s just a really hard feature to build and scale properly, and Chase just made it look easy. The difference I suspect, between building it as a core feature asset of your product experience and just building it on top later.
It’s ending soon, I believe, so not worth investing in fixing.
Cashback is definitely not same-day (I think they actually say in the T+C’s it can be up to 30 days).
I had some cash back yesterday - and the last time I used by Algbra account to buy something was the 23rd Jan. So, probably at least a week for it to be processed.
There’s also no way to ‘link’ what transaction the cash back you’ve been given is from apart from trying to work out what 1.5% is of each transaction and matching up the amount. The cash back yesterday was for 3p and on the 23rd I spent £3.74 so it’s probably that one.
It’s usually been a few days for me, and even when I was using it in Italy (one week’s camping paid for by card, oh yes!) it was about the same. Occasionally I’ve wondered when it will arrive but always does and I get a little alert the day after with a cumulative total.
