I wonder how close starling are in reality. They announced recently their partnership with CallCredit so they will now have to begin the long slog of integration in order to credit check and offer overdrafts.
Just having a quick skim through the other comments since my last post. I think the one thing that draws investors back to Atom is the fact it is actually functioning as a bank. If you cover your eyes and ears to forget about the App, they are taking deposits and they are lending (both business and personal).If you are looking at a market with a bunch of money to back someone and wondering where to put it then it does seem like the obvious safe bet. Worst case for them, they open up some branches and become a normal challenger bank (Tesco, Sainsburys, Virgin). I think on top of that they have an “owner” who has already got the track record of building up metro bank and getting it to float.
You can’t beat much of the above when sitting in front of investment fund guys who’s tie probably costs more than my yearly commute to work. It’s frustrating to see and I’m sure Loot, Monzo, Monese and the guys currently occupying the pre-paid card space would not say no to such funds, but we gotta look at the other side of the coin. It’s business.
That said… maybe Atom one day will implode… what do I know!
I agree on the loot web app. Nice to see someone going for both channels.
Gotta appreciate competition!!! Really interested to see what tandem brings to the party. Some serious silence across all channels, however today’s investor mail looked good.
There’s nothing we don’t know in this story but here’s a good summary of the new challenger bank’s place in the market, alongside the newer banks & ‘big banks’ -
I think the FT allow you to view x amount of articles for free, within a certain time period but in any case, we’ve posted quite a few articles which cover Monzo & the other challenger banks with :newspaper: in the topic’s title. These search results should display the latest articles. I hope that helps
Wow… being told how to run your fintech by a (random) retailer. That’s exactly what @anon91821566 was talking about when he said he doesn’t want to be owned by a bank.
Some interesting quotes in the interview with Revolut’s CEO -
“Our goal is to get beyond banking. You don’t really need to be a bank and being a bank actually limits you. If you look at all of the digital banking startups, they’re all local right — only UK, only France, only Germany.”
“Out of all the startups you mentioned — Monzo, Number26 — I think we’re going to get at least 10 times more compared to them, just because the different business lines that generate us revenue.”
It’s a shame he doesn’t break that down though…
Also:
530,000 users across 42 European countries after just 18 months.
Tom mentioned in this interview that Revolut offer cash incentives for new users to sign up.
Revolut … has raised over £12 million
Revolut is launching superfast peer-to-peer loans that will let users borrow up to £5,000 in as little as two minutes.
“In April we are launching travel insurance and device insurance, giving you wholesale rates. It will be 40-50% cheaper compared to other providers. We’re also launching a wealth product where you can effectively invest in different asset classes at the best possible price.”
[is] currently testing its business product with several companies and plans to launch the service in April
“right now when you order a card you pay £5 and you’ve got different delivery methods. 50% of users, they chose to pay for fast delivery. The other is interchange revenue, we’ve got fair use revenue, ATM revenue.”
Not bad, not bad (insert Obama face here). I wonder how it will work with various currencies though, Google is looking to dominate currency exchange market?
is not a threat according to the iOS snobs on 
