Hi, i use both Monzo and Starling as my everyday banks. The one thing that is pushing me towards Starling is the Pots/Goals and the Payee screens/tabs.
I know that both banks currently have similar features but Starlings just looks a lot better to me, for one main reason. You can edit pretty much anything, and even add your own pictures!
I’ve added pictures for all my payees and can edit them easily and made everything make sense for me - Love it.
It’s a shame that Monzo (which in my eyes always seemed to be the fun brother out of the 2 banks) has a very simple system and looks so boring and often confusing.
If i have 2 payees that aren’t on Monzo then it uses the initials and a background colour seemingly at random. For example both My Joint accounts have been called ‘J’ and only allow a small ‘J’ tile to reflect this.
I mean which looks better?
It’s the same story with the Goals/Pots. Even if for whatever technical reason we cannot add our own pictures at the very least Monzo please add some more stock pictures. i can imagine a lot of people using pots for savings/bills/shopping/christmas etc. Maybe some more relevant stock images?
Anyway let me know what you all think, or if it really is just me that this bugs
100% agree with this. It’s a bit frustrating that nothing is editable - i love that it gives the logos for companies that you pay so I can see at a glance where my money has gone/come from, but doesn’t allow you to add logos/images or anything to people
Im hoping the UI gets a bit of an overhaul after the big list is sorted. A few more graphical icons and a lessening of having to scroll to see pots, settings etc.
Thanks for the feedback, we are indeed working on overhauling this section and hopefully you’ll be pleased with some of the improvements we make over the next few months!
I % agree. Starling implement this extremely well and the new update coming soon looks even better. Monzo payments tab needs a overhaul especially where contacts are concerned. Fingers crossed
Sure we want things to look nice, but at this stage in monzo development I’d rather see them invest time in core features, things that are truly ground braking. To be honest the monzo app looks and performs better than my old high street bank ever did so I’m not at all bothered.
I might have to dust off my Starling account and take a look whats been going on over there, seems I’ve been missing out. Have they got rid of that silly doughnut chart of how much is “Spent Today”? Would be so much better if it was over a longer period than just a single day
That’s a bit of a contradiction of terms there (for me anyway).
I would class “core features”, as Payee Management - When old crappy legacy bank apps can do it as well (or better in most cases), I’d say Monzo are behind the curve there and it is absolutely a core feature of any banking app.
But, as always, it comes down to what people want/use in the app.
I have very little need for a lot of the analysis and breakdown functionality (the stuff that you could argue was indeed “ground breaking” for a banking app).
But I have a lot of need for a decent Payee management screen - I’m hoping and praying that it is really good when it’s revamped!
What I mean is payee management works. What I hear on here seems like a lot of people asking for it to look nice. So I’d rather see shared pots, innovative savings accounts and other things not thought about yet. How stuff looks and the user experience is massively important, don’t get me wrong. just wouldn’t want it to take precedence over new features.
I’d love it to work much better and look good too. I pay a lot of friends/family and some have more than one account. Working out which is which is a pain and is the worst part of the app experience imo. Can’t wait to see improvements
I agree with you that the Payments screen has always been a little confusing.
In Monzo’s defence, and as a Product Designer, my observation is that they intentionally use a lot of native iOS components in their design so that iPhone users don’t have to learn a new way controlling an app - especially new users during a phase of growth. (I’m sure they do the same for Android but as an iPhone user I can’t speak from experience). Your screenshot on the right, for example, looks so unfamiliar to me, that I thought it was an Android app, until I saw the status bar at the top.
With that said, I completely agree, there is a lot of improvement that could be made on the payments screen - both in the way it looks and works - some kind of middle ground between the two screenshots you shared maybe?
Love this thread. I posted similar feedback in the joint accounts feedback thread.
Avatars for payees would be awesome. But also being able to label them as something other than the payee name. I move money between a lot of my own accounts so seeing them all labelled R Patel is near useless unless I know each account and sort code.
And labelling standing orders too. Just seeing an amount going out isn’t helpful at all.
Didn’t know Starling is so good at this. Will give Monzo a little time but I’d totally switch for it.
!
% agree. Starling implement this extremely well and the new update coming soon looks even better. Monzo payments tab needs a overhaul especially where contacts are concerned. Fingers crossed 
