Wow that sounds like a real pie in the sky steaming pile of an idea made from the comfort of being nowhere near operational- like 10k extra police officers for Ā£300k a year
It might have been a decent āfaster horseā concept 9 years ago, but thereās no way that is going to reach market in this age!
Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group aka B are still trying to find a way to remain relevant, integrating with Amazonās Alexa, among other things, according to this article -
If you open Incognito Mode and Google the headline āClydesdale and Yorkshire banks on digital servicesā and click through from Google you should skip the paywall
PiggyPot just launched better saving goals including ISAsā¦ Looks interesting. Wonder if the money saved goes directly into the ISA productsā¦ Would be amazing to see something simialr in Monzo at the time.
Starling have just added a few screenshots of their app to their site.
The Payments options look good to me -
Debit Card options are functional, if a little plain & cluttered (thereās no need to display Lost or Stolen Card until the cardās āInactiveā) -
But based on these shots (there could be more functionality elsewhere in the app), while everyone loves a slider, theyāre nowhere near as clear as what Monzo areplanning, when it comes to displaying interest accrued, fees (they use an interest rate, rather pounds & pence) or what youāll pay by the end of the month
Yet still no sign of the beta for the vast majority of people wanting to test, their productā¦ Think a lot of people are starting to get bored of the lack of communications, and the endless - āyouāll hear from us very soonā line they farm out on twitter and facebookā¦
apparently "Starling customers can instantly open a checking account through the bankās app (currently available on iOS with Android launching next month) " in this comparison of 10 challengers
Ive just about given up on them having signed up last year - I think they must have lost my application , even though they keep on sending out intermittent emails about it coming soon after emailing me thanking me for my registration in July last year
Iām guessing that this is US only for now but Square are launching a prepaid card, to work alongside their Square Cash app.
It doesnāt sound like thereās many features at the moment but the ability to write your name / something else on the front of the card is a nice touch -
So Metrobank have been going since July 2010 and are celebrating 1 million customers which I make circa 142,857 people signing up per year (yes I know I divided by 7) anyway we are on what 200k now in 2 years?
TSB are hinting at some very Monzo style ideas hereā¦ āThe new mobile app will in future integrate with third party apps and services from Fintech startups, so that it becomes truly integrated with customersā digital lifestyle.ā
It looks like Starling are inching into the business banking services space (Iām not sure what the standard term is) here, by enabling businesses to accept payments from customers using Faster Payments & SEPA (later in the year) via their API & charging those businesses a fee for access to those services. This falls under their āStarling Payments Servicesā offering, which I havenāt heard of until now.
Itās obvious that this functionality is needed in order for some apps to work with the open API but less clear (to me, anyway) how this fits their consumer orientated business model, if they are offering this to companies that arenāt integrating directly / through Starlingās marketplace
Perhaps theyāre just doing it because they can & itāll earn them some extra revenue or maybe the business model includes providing business services too?
Edit - Hereās the FTās coverage of the same news, mentioning that -
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, announced plans to improve access last year that would allow companies providing payments services to tap into these systems rather than have to rely on traditional banks.
While this tweet (which Anne - Starlingās CEO - just retweeted) -
suggests to me that this is a move towards Banking As A Platformā¦
Iāve signed up to all the fintech banks
Monzo was the first
Atom
Tandem
Starling
I must say that so far I am more impressed with monzo out of all of them
Atom had major login problems and kept locking me out the account
Starling are not as open as I would like and are beginning to remind me of the banks that are already out there
Thereās a total lack of information , Iāve been waiting for a beta invite forever , there is no forum , and Iām about too lose interest
The fact monzo involves the community and we can keep up daily with whatās happening makes me feel so much more comfortable that someone is atleast listening