I want to say Egg, back in the noughties?
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I forgot how much absolute nonsense was in this article Introducing our new card - Starling Bank. Why did they need to justify with so much waffle a new card design?
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You call it waffle. But as it turns out, many banks have copied Starling’s design language, so it turned out to be pretty revolutionary. The Barclaycard design is virtually identical, and HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, TSB and Virgin have all since gone the ‘portrait and simple logo’ route.
You obviously appreciate good design (presumably that’s why you’re here on this thread) but seemingly don’t like it being described by the actual creators? I find that part interesting.
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Stuff can be described by its creators and still be waffle. This is waffle “A portrait bank card reflects how we actually use our cards today; it’s intuitive, instinctive, and in short: it’s just common sense.” It isn’t common sense. It’s an opinion on the orientation of a bank card. Some things you will use your card in a landscape orientation, some in a portrait. Starling cherry-picked the things you can do with a card to attempt to justify their decision whilst ignoring the landscape things.
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Except it’s landscape on the other side, so…?
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So it’s a load of waffle that essentially says “we wanted this card portrait but felt need need to write nonsense to justify it”.
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100pc
At the end of day to us it’s slightly interesting, to probably 99pc of the population they probably couldn’t care less what the card looked like 
I do, but then then again I’m a bank design geek who probably cares too much about how apps looks and feel
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Ecen with Starling’s name on their card being so prominant, im still not sure what their brand identity really is. They seem to use different logos and keep changing which they are using where.
Compare that to Santander for example who despite changing the font and logo slightly a few years ago, still has a clear identity with their flame logo and the use of red and white.
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Laughing at the amateurs here “waffling” on for nearly 1600 posts about design and “brand identity” etc. whilst at the same time dismissing the qualified professionals involved in the very same. You have to admit, it’s quite pompous.
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No, not at all. Giving opinions is not the same as waffling on about “common sense”.
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Photo of the Natwest premier design.
From New design of the NatWest Debit Mastercard in case anyone's interested — MoneySavingExpert Forum
I prefer the normal version. This just seems a bit too dark and “depressing” for me.
I know that image isn’t the best, so I’ll post the version from the Natwest website below.
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I still think it is strange that we didn’t get this design when Santander UK updated their cards considering they seem to be pushing for this design across many European countries (although I still very much like the design we got).
Photo from Santander Portugal
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I pulled the starling out of my sin bin… I should give it a clean! 
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I remember the credit card with it and I liked it a lot. Probably one of the best vertical designs. It can’t have gone down too badly considering they are using it in Spain as well as Portugal, and if I understood the article correctly, Poland.
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Just done some more digging, and the Santander credit cards in certain countries seems to have some pretty decent features.
From What are the parts of a credit card?
This article below is definitely on about Mexico, not sure where the above article is on about.
from Banco Santander has launched the first numberless credit card in Mexico
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I could happily “waffle on” for hours about my liking of simple, non embossed cards 
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I do remember their “turning a corner” blog post, and a load of justifying explanation accompanying the announcement about how it more accurately reflects “the ways we use our cards today”.
PS: Now I see the link to the blog post has been posted below, and I actually said all that without even reading it or referring back to it. Oh dear, I didn’t realise I’d cluttered up my brain with this stuff.
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I asked the NatWest support on facebook about the difference between the landscape and portrait design (I knew there wasn’t actually a difference in terms of function) and they said
“Hi, the first one is part of an older batch, the second one is the design we currently use (for cards being issued). Please let us know if you need any help. We are here for you 24/7.”
It is what we thought, but it still seems strange to change from landscape to portrait like that.
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You’re right it’s strange. And stranger to change images (thinking about the X sign changing to a beach hut, and the train windows changing to another beach hut) so rapidly too.
I reckon someone high up threw their weight around, or consumer research panels preferred the portrait/huts combos.
Personally, the beach huts couldn’t be more random, and less 
Scottish if they’d tried.
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I personally like the RBS cards, but I agree they have nothing to do with the RBS brand or Scotland which does confuse me as well. They might as well just drop the Scotland name and call themselves “The Royal Bank”. Fairly sure their current TV ad has nothing to do with Scotland either.