Metro bank have become first new bank to break into the closed world of the Faster Payments Scheme since 2008 becoming a core direct member
Has anyone seen anything from Arro (https://www.arromoney.com/)? I came across them on a Facebook advert. They donāt divulge too much into how they work but I assume itās the same way as Loot in that they piggyback on another bankās backend systems and just use their own brands.
Canāt see anything about push notifications or a smart app though, so it could just be another ThinkMoney lookalike in the no credit check, no address verification kinda systems.
No, but I do need a business bank account pretty quickly and Tide are taking forever (months!!) to move through a relatively tiny queue IMHO. Was about to try Metro but will have a look at this look too, cheers 
Metro just signed up with Post Office to let you use them with your Metro bank business account
Anyone got any info on the actual experience? My mortgage is a long way off needing a change so doubt Iāll be trying this out in the next 10 years
Not strictly a competitor at present, as Lunar Way is focussed on the Nordic countries, but an interesting story nonetheless:
Danish banking app Lunar Way is one of a plethora of startups in Europe attempting to update the retail banking experience with a mobile-first offering. However, rather than securing a banking license of its own ā Ć la challenger banks such as Monzo, Atom, Starling and Tandem in the U.K. ā the Danish company is partnering with local banks in the countries it operates in, a strategy it believes has enabled it to get to market and innovate faster.
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No doubt they will be a Monzo competitor one day 
No banking license means I have the same concerns for them, as I do for Loot though -
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Probably a little bit unfair to highlight this, as it may have been a one off but this made me smile (& is a good example of some great response times) - in the time that it took Metro Bank to reply to this tweet
Monzo had already replied, suggested a fix, when the fix didnāt work suggested the user contact the support team & the support team enabled another potential fix 
oh & this is what happened when the user responded to Metro Bankās request
I donāt really agree with this article (particularly the bit at the end about challenger banks being only for the few) however the customer satisfaction is still interesting. Monzo isnt included - I wonder whether Monzo do track customer satisfaction? Ive never been asked!
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I disagree with this article.
Clients from high street banks probably donāt care or are too lazy to complain about the level of service to start with.
Secondly, clients that are now with ānew challenger banksā have a higher standard when it comes to service (thatās why they moved from high street to these ānew challenger banksā in the first place).
What about satisfaction of current clients from ānew challenger banksā in comparison to their former high street banks?
Nonetheless, there will always be room for improvement when it comes to UX regardless of service, sector or company.
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Continuing the trendā¦
UK banks shut 1,000 branches as customers turn to mobile banking
More than 1,000 bank branches have closed in the UK during the past two years as pressure mounts on lenders to cut costs and as more customers turn to mobile banking.
HSBC has shut the most outlets of any bank since the start of 2015, reducing nearly 30 per cent of its network across the country by closing 321 branches, according to Which?, the consumer group.
The state-backed lenders Royal Bank of Scotlandand Lloyds Banking Groupshut 191 and 180 branches respectively. The regions with the most bank branch closures per 100,000 people were Wales, south-west England and Scotland.
Pressure is building on banks to cut costs at a time when profit margins are being squeezed by record-low interest rates. The main reason for closing branches to meet this goal, banks say, is the growth of mobile and online banking. HSBC, for example, has seen the number of branch visits drop by 40 per cent in the past five years.
Research published this year by the consultancy Caci showed that current account customers visited a bank branch 427m times in 2015 ā less than half the 895m logins on a mobile app. The number of branch visits is forecast to drop to 268m by 2020, while mobile app usage is on track to more than double to 2.3bn.
& ā¦
ābanks should consider innovations such as cash delivery and pick-up services as an alternative.ā
what a nightmare to have to deal with (& pure cost), poor banks 
Edit
Also -
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Hi Guys,
I know this is the competitor update thread, but is there an update on Monzo.
Maybe @tom could provide us with an update on timelines in relation to getting the full bank licence?
The only reason I ask is that Iām just eager to kick my existing bank to touch as soon as possible and being completely sold on Monzo means iāll be treating it as my main bank as soon as the license is granted.
One other reason is that it seems to me the pace of innovation will really pick up when you get given the full license.
Thereās always
My first point of call when Iād like to know whatās going on 
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Thanks. Checked that out already though. Was more referring to the nitty gritty of whats required to move from an a limited banking license to a full banking licence
Hi James, good question. Weāll perhaps publish a blog post setting out timelines in more detail, but the answer is broadly āthe first half of 2017ā.
Weāre testing out the very first Monzo bank accounts internally right now; weāve successfully made live Faster Payments, Bacs Direct Credits and Direct Debits, and foreign transfers, all with Monzo account numbers and sort-code. Weāre also working to finalise our full MasterCard implementation.
We canāt hold more than Ā£50k of customer deposits until our restrictions are lifted by the regulator, so weāll have to stick with internal testing until that happens. Once our restrictions are lifted, weāll start rolling out the first few hundred āfullā banks accounts to early supporters. Iād hope this would be around March/April/May time. We need to figure out the fairest way of allocating these first accounts!
As long as weāre happy that everythingās working as expected, weāll ramp up the numbers of these accounts, as we did with the prepaid card. Weāre aiming to fully transition the prepaid programme to full bank accounts by about June/July 2017.
As with before, these dates are just my best guess. There are a number of reasons the dates could slip, but theyāre what weāre working to right now.
Hope that helps!
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Iām curious @tom, @oliver (or anybody else?)! What are Monzoās sort codes? Do we have a unique set or do we piggyback on another bankās set of sort codes (like Metro Bank with Barclaysās 20 sort codes)?
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Because PR
https://ibsintelligence.com/ibs-journal/ibs-news/starling-bank-pilots-debit-card-delivery-by-drone/
Why would a bank bother working out how to do this, when normal couriers will be able to offer the service, as soon as the regulators approve using drones for delivery (whenever that is)?
Surely flying drones from the HQ would only make a marginal difference in delivery time vs having a courier collect the cards, at that point.
Much less secure too as theyāre quite easy to shoot down (with decent aim) and they donāt post through your letterbox so anyone grab the delivery.
That being said, weād hope they have some kind of card activation by app security measure in place. Iām not sure how they work.
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ā¦because someone lost the plot
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Because PR is still a pretty good reason Reminds me of when transferwise kept on getting naked in London
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