Starling Discussion & Feedback

Agreed; apologies – won’t derail further!

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The notifications could also be down to the merchant and their internet connection? At work (heathrow) 9 times out of 10 i get the notification almost in unison with the “transaction approved” notice on the reader when using my card on contactless, ill try tomorrow with apple pay, as that may be slower as theres more tech involved in a way

This isn’t how banking works at all. If Monzo have £100 of my money in pots that total amount is held on deposit. If I’m £50 into my overdraft, Monzo is still holding £50 on deposit earning interest on that amount from the deposit whilst also charging me interest for ‘lending’ which they’re not actually doing.

They shouldn’t charge for a lending product if they’re not actually lending anything.

Other banks I can understand doing it as their savings accounts are actually different however with Monzo this isn’t the case.

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We’ve been through all this already. From @tom:

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Its exactly how Monzo Banking works :slight_smile: , its quite clear and its the customers choice, whether to pay the overdraft fee or transfer the money in their pot so they don’t have to pay the overdraft fee, clear and simple :slight_smile:

Yes we’ve been through this discussion repeatedly about encouraging or not encouraging people to use an overdraft facility thats “free” and the consequences of unforeseen things happening in life when you have been encouraged to use the “free” overdraft facilities

We will probably never agree :slight_smile: - I have always in life erred on the use your own money - others have used “free” facilities - Ive never been in debt apart from mortgage debt and a business loan secured on land , others have spiralled into debt through no fault of their own , others have been encouraged into debt with “free” money :slight_smile:

For those that are financially savvy “free” money is a very useful facility - IF - no unforeseen circumstances occur while they use the facility , for those that struggle with finances it quite often turns into a trap that is very difficult to escape from - I know which side I would want Monzo to follow - if at all possible live within your budget, if I buy this item I will either have to pay an overdraft if I have no money in the CA that Monzo can charge against , or I will have to move money from my pot that I was saving up for “X” - encouraging people to live within their budget if at all possible.

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Just to clarify how this works, there’s no charge for going into your overdraft. When you do go into your overdraft, you get a notification and have the option of transferring money into your current account by the end of the day (either from a pot or other bank account) to avoid paying any interest. There is also an interest-free £20 overdraft, so you can be overdrawn a bit without paying anything.

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@jzw95 Thanks for the reply.

It has now been explained including as above Tom’s explanation. I suppose as someone new to Monzo; I didn’t read through all the previous forum posts and also have used a rival service I assumed it worked the same; and all know what assumption did.

I can see how coming from a bank that charges for being overdrawn even if they have your money, the Monzo charging is very transparent and welcome and I get @tom point, but having come from a different service it was not clear that you are overdrawn if the balance on your ‘main’ account is less than £0. @anon95680666 explained very well this is not how it works and if you want to avoid it here is the action to take.

As @anon95680666 said it is horse for courses, some like the freedom that they can spend knowing their ‘savings’ will cover the amount, whilst others want the discpline not to accidently spend their emergency funds or whatever.

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Having been a Monzo user for almost 2 years now, recently I decided to give Starling a try and see what I think of it. Here are some of my thoughts comparing similar features between the two banks. Please keep in mind these are all personal opinions based on my needs and how I like to manage my money.

Monzo does better:

  • Ability to set budgets – no real budgeting options in Starling, however this is not a concern for me and I don’t think Monzo has nailed budgeting yet (see below*).
  • Ability to exclude transactions from Spending/Summary – I’d prefer not having rent, bills etc. counted as money spent in Starling.
  • Advanced search tools – text based only search in Starling.
  • Round ups – though I understand Starling are introducing these soon.
  • Easily see total balance available between current accounts and Pots – Starling Goals are entirely separate from balance.
  • App feels native, supports 3D Touch etc (I’m on iOs) – Starling’s custom font and, in general, the look and feel of the app are too design-y for my liking.
  • Great customer service – I had to contact customer service on Starling and I was less than impressed.
  • And obviously this great community forum!

Starling does better:

  • Statements don’t include movements of money between current account and Goals – Monzo’s statements include every single Pots movement which I find silly and makes reading statements really confusing (especially if you use round ups etc).
  • Easily swipe through months – I find Monzo’s way of accessing previous months’ spending a bit clunky.
  • View spending grouped by merchants – on Monzo you can only see individual transactions or categories.
  • Spending shown as percentages: I find this extremely useful, visually (not so much the ‘Spent today’ ring, rather the percentage bars under each Categories/Merchants).
  • Simple concept of money in, money out – *while Monzo has ambitious ideas for detecting income and setting budgets, I find these tools faulty in the current implementation and ultimately not particularly useful. More generally, I don’t share the idea that there should be money ‘left to spend’ until the end of the month. I feel like Monzo never really moved away from the questionable concept of spending ‘targets’.
  • Advanced payee management, for example the ability to save multiple bank accounts for each payee – on Monzo, you can’t really manage payees. Also it’s impossible to view bank details of friends (contacts) on Monzo (or am I missing something obvious?)
  • Goals seem to work a lot better than Pots – I find Monzo’s Pots management really bad from an UX/UI point of view. Also: custom images.
  • Interest paid on main account – a no brainer.
  • Markeplace already up and running – what’s happening with Monzo’s?
  • Post Office cash deposits, and no fees

Hopefully this is helpful to some people? I’d love to hear what you guys think on the above.

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:soon: :wink:

A really good analysis! Thanks for taking the time to put down your thoughts :muscle:

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Released today by the looks of it. :slight_smile:

https://twitter.com/StarlingBank/status/1070335803048554498?s=19

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Very comprehensive list and I’d agree with you on pretty much it all.

Starling are just nicking it for me at the moment but thankfully Monzo are have a few changes planned that will nick it back in my eyes:

  • Custom Pot Images / More Pots
  • Better Payee Management
  • Better View for Pots/Account Screen

The only thing I cant see them rectifying is the free Cash Deposits unfortunately but lets hope they make it up elsewhere.

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Haha crikey, they should get a community that would suggest features like that…

I was really hoping both Monzo and Starling would do roundups in this format: the true transaction value listed, with the additional roundup in a smaller, slightly greyed-out figure below it. It would have made for a clearer view.

@SouthseaOne I remember someone mocked up a version of how the roundups should look like on the now-defunct forum. They should have just stole his design or at least take on his feedback bec it was really good

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@danmullen must be nice partying pretty hard right now. :grin:

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I’m carrying out so many card transactions right now, just can’t get enough :joy:

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Yeah, remember that from over there, back in the glory days of July and August

Maybe it was true after all that Starling are better at picking up customer ideas when not having to interact with them!

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I don’t get the ‘loyalty’ part.
We are all here because we felt being ‘loyal’ to a bank or building society was a silly idea.
And that shouldn’t change for fintech banks should it?

Use the bank which suits your lifestyle.

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Because of unlimited goals in Starling, something you can try is having a goal per budget. This gives you “real” envelope budgeting, which works far better than Monzo’s attempt at budgeting for my way of thinking.

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Starlings round ups way better… they round online spending as well
And you can save more by multiplying by 2-10…