Surprised to discover a new bank in gestation here in London with no discussion in the forum. B-social, as it was known until earlier this month (and was up for a British Bank Award this year alongside Monzo) has just become Kroo and is in the process of applying for a UK banking licence.
Kroo seems to be a banking hybrid of Splitwise and Monzo’s bill-splitting tabs feature, with its own debit card built-in.
I think you have to be super die-hard to try all these banks.
I used to use my Lloyds account as my ‘spends’ and Natwest as bills. My boss mentioned Monzo because of the money abroad features, I liked the look of his card, notifications and I gave it a go. Put some money in to test it out and now it’s my full-time bank.
Had my boss had Starling or any of the others, then I’d have probably tried those and be with them instead.
But to try one now is more effort than I’m willing to put in. It would have to have something really good to lure me over and if I put £50 in, what am I going to learn? It’s even more effort to see how it handles direct debits etc. Set up pots or whatever they call them.
I think the point of Kroo is that it’s more social than just single-user in isolation.
I am just interested in the journey to wherever we end up in, say, five years. There will be winners and losers, but it’s interesting to see another company give something unique a try.
I must be getting old. I have a good bunch of friends but I don’t have a “kroo”.
Actually, scrub that. I am getting old. I don’t like emojis in Monzo help chat; don’t understand much beyond smile, wink, and sad face anyway; pretty unlikely to be kroo’s target demographic!
Edit - interesting concept though, and I do enjoy seeing how things are evolving.
I’m a bit fintech fatigued.
I might have been interested a few years ago, but right now I just want Starling/Monzo/Dozens etc to mature into reliable, robust and feature rich platforms that do what they promised: constant product development and iteration.
I’m not sure that I have the energy to go through this all again. 
Maybe that’s the point. Perhaps Kroo have entered the market too late? In any case, opening up just as coronavirus hits might be catastrophic. Perhaps the best it can hope for is to sell its tech to a high street bank?
How did I miss this thread!?
I just heard of these from them winning best newcomer at the British bank awards today.
The branding is nice, the website is nice, the app looks nice, the card looks very nice.
Has anyone here ever used them and have any experiences to share? I may sign up for this one and give them a try!
Ha. Kroo won Best Newcomer this year after being nominated in that category last year? What kinda shit they pulling?
Wasn’t even aware they were nominated last year! I considered myself more in the loop than that. Can’t fathom as to how I’d never noticed them.
I must say though, from first impressions, they are one of the better presented latecomer copycats I’ve come across. They’ve certainly piqued my interest as a result.
I do share in the frustrations above at the level of fragmentation and the fatigue that causes. There are so many. Too many. It’s just not fathomable for all of them to exist.
The thing with Kroo I think (having got a card for my collection) is that it does the same thing as Splitwise, but you have to wait for debit cards to turn up, so you can’t really get friends to join up en route to a weekend away etc. And it’s a bigger ask, to get folk to open a proper account, rather than download the Splitwise app.
I have seen promoted Tweets for Kroo on Twitter so they clearly are trying to push themselves to gain more users.
Not long now 
The app looks really pleasant, I like it.
Are you able to add the card to Apple Pay / Google Pay?
Strong reference to what Starling bank does now 
Only in case you want to help to plant 10 trees each 
That’s awesome! That was one of my favourite things about N26. Specifically the Jedi wave gesture over your camera to activate it.
No not yet
(all by one tap in settings)