Competitor update

I was just taking a look at the Starling Bank website and noticed a link to their status page.

Their card processor went down on March 5th, same day all the others went down. Looks like they may be using GPS to process their payments.

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Iā€™ve got a lot to learn first, so it wonā€™t be soon.

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My only issue is that they are not as transparent as Monzo, even down to how they are choosing beta usersā€¦ Will be interesting to give them a whirl, and see how it worksā€¦

But my heart i think is with Monzo

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I like the green and glow effect but I hate pie charts, I also like the purple card.

Starling are definitely losing to Monzo in the communication stakes. Iā€™ve been on their waiting list since October, while I havenā€™t actively tried to find out, itā€™s disappointing that I still donā€™t really know what their offering is / when I can get a card etc.

Iā€™ve actually learned more about them on this forum than I have from them.

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Likewise, tandem are in the same situation

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Same here been on since september and was told the same, crap comms from them tbh

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Interestingly enough for me. I work for a company that was stationed next to Starling Bank at the Silicon Milk Roundabout back in November. They seemed pretty good at the time and the product sounded excellent. However, ironically, after coming home to investigate further. I realised they didnā€™t have much to offer at the time nor would they for a while. I instead stumbled upon Monzo and here I am today. This was a huge factor in why I decided to back Monzo. The ability to have something tangible and see it grow was what interests me in backing a startup. I feel by hiding things away theyā€™ve lost a lot of potential interest.

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When I saw this email come through with that subject line, Iā€™d stupidly thought that Starling had got their act together and sent an invite out for their beta.

Apparently not :joy:

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The pie chart looks great at first sight but it is a pretty worthless graphic. Note the Ā£48 category has almost the same size portion as the Ā£12.10 category which doesnā€™t make sense - it should be 4 times bigger. The problem with financial pie charts is that most spending is in the same categories and smaller categories become virtually invisible in comparison so it can make a poor visual display. If you are going to solve that problem by just displaying random portions of the pie which are not related to the amounts then it completely takes away the point of having a pie chart imho.

I donā€™t think they have launched anything to anyone outside their employee circle, they have just put a crappy infographic on social media to make it look like they are progressing, unless anyone has received an invite?? I am registered but have not heard anything about it.

I did get this through about a week ago but didnā€™t end up replying. You had to email back for a formal invitation.

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Out of Curiosity when did you register your interest in Starling? As i asked them yesterday how they where choosing Beta users and got a cut and paste replyā€¦

I signed up with Starling (and Tandem) for what seems ages now. Iā€™ve had little to no communication from them since. You can find no details of their account anywhere?! So what are they expecting me to sign up for?

I want an account I can use commission free abroad, like Monzo is, is this what Starling are offering?? Before I sign up for something I want to know a lot more about it. Iā€™m not holding my breath for an invite. Despite what Starling think, Iā€™m more interested in the details, than I am about the colour of the card!

Some meat on the bone is what will attract people, dangling an invite to an account I know nothing about wonā€™t encourage me, nor others I suspect!

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Iā€™m registered for updates with atom, starling and am apparently a co-founder of Tandem, but i donā€™t have the foggiest idea what they are doing as their new releases are not available to me despite being one of the first to sign up.

Judging by House of Fraser forcing Tandem to lay off staff and these new launches from Atom and Starling which you canā€™t actually sign up for or use- can only see brief screenshots, they are using secrecy as a cloak to hide the fact that they are not up to a lot and are massively behind monzo and revolut. They have all been sending emails saying itā€™s just around the corner for over a year, and they are full of the same ā€œthe old banks have failed and itā€™s time for a new bankā€ garbage. They have been all talk and no substance. I donā€™t understand how they are receiving all these millions of pounds in funding.

I think there is a pretty high chance that at least one of them is going to turn out to be the next Powa. itā€™s just a matter of time until they have to reveal what they havenā€™t been working on for all this time.

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Likewise. Iā€™d forgotten Atom! Iā€™m a savings account holder with them, but found about their current account on this site!!??

If any of them want to save money, Iā€™d start with sacking their marketing departments!

Revolutā€™s P2P loans are not very seamless. I clicked apply and it said to do this-that-and-the-other to verify yourself before you can apply to borrow. I gave up pretty quickly, but then I didnā€™t really want a loan, maybe If I did I would persevere?

Revolut are iterating and growing at a remarkable rate, seemingly unhindered by geography and the obstacles of being a bank. And now they are talking about being a marketplace bank exponentially bigger than monzo and n26! It seems they have almost carried out half of monzoā€™s entire business plan in the space of a year. Time will tell if theyā€™ve found the right formula to make it huge or if they are going to sell out or hit a wall and be forever chained to GPS and Wirecard.

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The big difference between Revolut & Monzo is Revolut donā€™t have a banking license & donā€™t plan to get one, according to the CEO.

Theyā€™re obviously going to provide a good range of features & services. But theyā€™ll have to charge fees in order to earn revenue which theyā€™ve started doing already.

Monzo wonā€™t need to charge fees because theyā€™ll be able to cover their costs with the revenue they earn from overdrafts.

If they plan to make money off purely ovedrafts, then surely they are going to charge fees. I assume in fact this would be better known as an ā€œoverdraft feeā€ in the real world?

Once again, really would love to see how monzo can make money off just overdrafts. Every bank in the current landscape defines a current account as a loss lead in the hope to cross sell their other products.

I havenā€™t seen anything from Starling on this point either? Do they list their product line up somewhere I can take a look at?

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There will be feeā€™s involved for overdrafts but the advantage Monzo have over the legacy banks who claim to run current accounts as a loss is that they have no branches so vastly reduced overheads.

I donā€™t buy that legacy banks run current accounts at loss, given the various fees they do charge.Think itā€™s something they look to put out there to give you the sense you should somehow feel grateful to them for holding all YOUR money and making massive profits off the back of it.

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There will be a charge for using Monzoā€™s overdrafts which is how they will make their revenue.

I should have been clearer - AFAIK, thatā€™s the only charge youā€™ll incur for using a Monzo account (with just one other exception) but youā€™ll only pay if you decide to use an overdraft, itā€™s essentially paying interest & there wonā€™t be any punitive fees. Iā€™ll leave Monzo to explain the semantics of interest vs overdraft fees, once theyā€™ve finalised how the pricing will work.

The lack of a bank branch network or a legacy technology stack to maintain means that Monzo can cover itā€™s costs from overdraft revenue alone.

The banks make Ā£120 - Ā£200 per current account & James (from the Monzo teamā€™s) guess is that at least half of that comes from fees.

Thatā€™s Starling for you :upside_down: they have said that they are planning to launch a marketplace too & overdrafts first though.