Starling Bank Chat (Part 2)

Starling accepting previous customers back yet?

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Nope.

I did email their privacy team and ask for a manual/human review as it could be an automated check causing the rejection.

They’ve not replied since 29th December which gives them another 6 days before I fire a complaint off (yes, I’ll be petty) :joy:

Edit: it states in their privacy policy or somewhere you can ask for a human review - so that’s what I did.

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Speaking of Starling and mistakes, it’s been 4 months since they announced changes to the Easy Saver product that have yet to materialise, meanwhile they’ve released the questionable ā€˜last digit widget’ that nobody asked for, as well as a minor tweak to the home tab.

The Easy Saver could have been a separate account from the beginning, with its own sort code & account number with Spaces built in, and scheduled deposits/withdrawals. It was launched (over a year ago) as the Easy Saver Savings Account but was half-baked and limited to a Space.

New logo suggestion via ChatGPT:

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I disagree, given these are finite.

Products can be implemented and built without the above, which makes it more financially viable for the business, and all movements simplified through the Starling account feed as has always been (and preferred imo).

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There seems to be some conflicts of what Starling’s focus on atm. Before the rebranding, they already prefer providing BaaS and less focused on retail banking. The rebranding made it even clear they wanted to steer a bit further away from banking and try to be The Everything App like Revolut. Plus, Ā£29m fine was a big hit.

I think Anne Boden dislike for Open Banking didn’t set them up with a strong foundation to remain relevant in retail neobanking either, given Europe and the UK are now trying to setup infrastructures independent from US tech giants. :thinking:

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I disagree - they dropped the word ā€œbankā€ but everything else they mentioned in the rebrand press release was about banking and helping people be good with money. I would say that Monzo is the one that’s well on their way to being more like Revolut.

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Also disagree on this, can’t think of any features Starling have added that are more ā€œeverything appā€ instead of ā€œbanking appā€.

Compare Starling to Revolut or Monzo, there’s no investments, rewards/cashback, insurance, e-sim

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Ah, my bad, all I paid attention to is their branding design and none to their press releases. :sweat_smile: If one had to read press releases to understand the message behind the new look (which contradicts their dropping the word bank) then the new look has failed to convey its intention. Are they repositioning themselves from a neobank to a WealthTech company? Feels unclear to me. :thinking:

Interested to know how changing a few colours and the font portrays changing direction from a bank to an everything app?

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Not sure if you meant to be sarcastic or genuinely asking about my own interpretation of a brand’s design. :upside_down_face:

Starling old colour scheme wasn’t great but maintaining constant colour scheme and a recognisable logo throughout those years is a way of maintaining solid brand recognition, and therefore credibility. The old branding showed a good understanding of accessibility friendly design: good colour contrast, easy to read fonts (symetrical, solid lines, etc) - all of which a financial institution with a large target audience should be able to convey to the public.

The new branding lost all of those characteristics, if you used their wonky typography for anything else non-fintech I wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s Starling’s. In fact, their app design logic is pretty poor from a neurodivergent perspective, so accessibility friendly has probably always been an afterthought to them anyway. They wasted money for an unnecessary change and is now doing a big layoff. I would not be surprised if they’re going to start scraping what’s left at the bottom of the barrel in the fintech market now that they’ve dropped the word ā€œbank". How is it ā€œGood With Money" after making a bunch of poor decisions and announcing a big layoff?

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I was genuinely interested, no sarcasm :slightly_smiling_face:

People just seem to be reading too much in to a brand refresh (IMO).

The actual changes in the app are pretty minimal (the app icon and logo being the two biggest but once launched you don’t see those)

Starling rebranded: What changed and why it matters has some good explanations about the changes. A lot of which were focused around accessibility and legibility.

This is a quote from Starling about the font used in the refresh:

Precision is important, so our new font is more legible. It’s easier to distinguish between characters like ā€˜O’ and ā€˜0’ — crucial when looking at account numbers and transaction details.

Also disagree on the dropping of bank from the name, it just puts them more inline with Monzo and Revolut (neither of which use the word bank in the name).

I’ve been with Starling for years and never once called them ā€œStarling bankā€, which was the reasoning behind dropping it:

Another quote from Starling:

We’ve dropped ā€˜bank’ from our logo. Most people call us Starling anyway.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOqRk-ZjEnR/ this shows some of the changes with explanations for them in the description.

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I will say though, the new joint account cards look crap in brown :laughing:

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I just hate that muddy aubergine colour. Reminds me of the dirty green colour they use for cigarette packets

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Starling have added spaces within savings accounts, the interest is paid into the main savings account

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I’m guessing this is a staged rollout as I don’t have it yet.

I also saw elsewhere that Kite cards can now finally be added to digital wallets.

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I can see an option for automatic transfers in but not for withdrawals :neutral_face:

That’s because it’s a savings account not a hold my money until bills arrive and pay them account (automatically).

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You can also use image playground on Apple devices to build your own picture for the spaces.

Euro accounts can now be applied for once again

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Wonder if that means they’re (or will soon be) allowing ex-customers back again

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