Competitor update

Hi Kim Dotcom! :joy:

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The guy is a legend in my eyes. Roll on Bitcache :wink:

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Starling’s marketing seems to be going through a bit of a transformation at the moment (they’re using emoji on Twitter now :eyes:) & to top it off, they’ve posted a blog post today detailing some of their plans for the next 12 months -

https://www.starlingbank.com/the-starling-bank-roadmap/

They’ve finally launched a community like this one -

And they’re planning -

  • Saving goals (aka Monzo’s upcoming update to the targets feature)
  • Virtual cards
  • Digital wallets :thinking:
  • More security controls (disable online & contactless transactions :roll_eyes:) & restrictions on card useage by country
  • Updates to the pie chart, to enable users to see their spending over the month
  • The launch of their marketplace
  • Joint accounts
  • Accounts for under 18 year olds

Should be fun to see who can roll these features out first :running_man:

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In their forums they said they are targeting end of July for Apple Pay support.

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I hope Monzo gets out with a lot of this stuff first, as Starling are stealing a bit of a march on us!

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They are in some places but judging by the Starling Feedback topic, they’re still behind in plenty of areas too :slight_smile:

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I’d rather it was done right than done first :slight_smile:

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Starling Feedback

Starling And Monzo are nearly same. But both developed for profit. There must be a competition to keep fees low

I’m curious to know what prompted Tom and others to leave starling and create Monzo. Has this ever been publicly talked about?

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Since it sounds like Tom etc. aren’t allowed to talk about why he left, this coverage about this split is probably as close as you’ll get to a complete explanation -

(sorry bout the paywall)

in other words ‘friction’ was the cause. There’s some more comments on what happened here -

(no paywall but you need to create an account to view this)

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/06/29/2167987/app-only-bank-starling-loses-another-chief-technology-officer/?mhq5j=e2

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Thanks. Yeah I’d spotted the FT article. It would be interesting to know because on the face of it Monzo and Starling look almost identical in what they are trying to achieve.

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its not a good look losing all these top bods. it also cant be a coincident that these top bods have left. i smell a fish.

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It would! If I had to guess I’d say it’s probably the things that are most different about their two approaches - transparency, engagement with users & their tone (+ potentially, technology) - that caused the disagreements.

I feel I can relate to the Monzo team & that they share my values a lot more than Starling so if I was Tom, I’d be pretty frustrated if I felt that they didn’t understand them. In my opinion, those things are going to be pretty critical for Monzo’s growth, although as we’re seeing, Starling are starting to do a pretty good impression of Monzo now.

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@alexs hits the nail on the head here - I have a starling account and it’s fine, but it doesn’t enthuse me like Monzo does. I feel Monzo have ideals that are aligned with what I want, I simply don’t get that with startling, they are just a modern bank account.

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To be honest I think both accounts are similarly aligned its just the marketing and styling is a little different.

In the long term, we are already “the converted”, for them to survive long term they need to convince the masses that they are credible and can be trusted with their monthly pay cheque and I think that will be a tougher sell.

Otherwise we could see Monzling or perhaps StarZo once Tom and his counterparts at Starling move onto their next big life projects.

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i agree @Smallhorse its similar to android and iOS. they essantially do the same thing but the approach is different (supported by the philosophies).

also agree with the long game, preaching to the masses that this is the future and getting that right (along with the product offering(s) and being trusted as well. finances is still arguably a taboo in this country and with the majority, if it aint broken why change (also the case when it is broken, they wont change)

Here’s some more details on Zopa’s plans to become a bank, unsurprisingly it sounds like the main motivation for them is being able to do balance sheet lending -

credit cards and auto-finance will be among the first products

It sounds like things are going fairly well for Curve -

  • More than 50,000 SMEs (presumably quite a few of those are actually consumers) have signed up for the London-based start-up’s programme
  • They’re working on a consumer version of the programme
  • They’re planning to expand into Europe this year
  • They’re working on account aggregation :roll_eyes:

Curve also announced it has raised $5 million in seed funding from venture capitalists and fintech entrepreneurs, and will close a Series A funding round this month. Last September, the company raised £2 million ($2.5 million) in post-seed investment.

http://www.bankingtech.com/884601/curve-hits-50-50-milestones-consumer-card-to-come/

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It might also just be lots of small things, rather than one big thing. Might be that Tom had different ideas about various details, but didn’t have the freedom to act on it because Anne had a clear vision of how she wanted Staling to work. If you have two people with strong visions that differ in small but important ways, the best thing is probably for them to pursue the, separately instead of one or both compromising and being unhappy.

I seem to remember from one of the interviews with Tom, that he and Anne are still on decent terms and periodically see each other. It might be there’s no big story to tell. Or it might be good PR not to air dirty laundry, and there’s a massive story to tell. :wink:

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