Starling Discussion & Feedback

That it’s a better bank than Monzo, I think.

/s

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Look at amex, their cards are aimed at people who pay in full each month in order to earn cashback or points. The higher interchange fees most likely help to pay for both of these.
The 56 days free credit also is better than a overdraft with no free credit at all for someone who needs to get out of a hole.

Not really the case anymore, Amex has been moving away from charge cards and into credit cards for years, as well as introducing “pay later” features to their charge cards.

While I guess Amex probably makes a profit on its UK interchange (and other fees) I don’t think it’s anything outrageous. It’s a highly competitive market and when merchants are (in theory) paying 0.3% for accepting MasterCard they won’t be interested in paying 3% for Amex.

The co-branded Amex cards (I.e. BA, Nectar) are also subject to the EU interchange caps so it’s only for their own cards that they in theory can charge whatever they want.

I seem to be a victim of this with many of my posts. I did go to post in the other topic as suggested …but found that one to have been closed.

Anyway, I suspect this one will be flagged out of existence but I was really here to talk about Starling.

I can confirm that SOs leave on the exact day you specify, regardless of weekends/public holidays. DDs are paid on the next working day.

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I think @desu is referring to the way people typically use AmEx credit cards (ie as reward-paying charge cards), rather than actual charge cards. Their rewards are pointless if you incur even occasional interest charges - I like to know its there for an emergency, but I’ve never paid them a penny in interest. Though even at AmEx rates this would be cheap compared to most overdrafts these days.

Which gives me an opportunity to steer this back to Starling… I knew it was time to ditch my old world bank, and with an open mind tried both Monzo and Starling. I ended up with the latter for my main bank. The reason for me was simple - overdrafts. As someone who occasionally dips/dipped into theirs, Monzo’s 50p a day charge would have been simply crazy for me.

I just can’t understand this Monzo vs Starling rivalry though - each will be a better proposition to some people. Both are exactly what the banking/finance world needs and there is space for them both. Rather than hoping one ‘beats’ the other, we should be hoping that the old world banks are the ones ‘beaten’.

To paraphrase a great man - “We need to let go of the notion that for $bank[0] to win, $bank[1] has to lose” (assign values “Monzo” and “Starling” to $bank[n] as you personally feel is appropriate - I’m not getting into which bank is which 90’s tech giant for fear of getting flagged :slight_smile: ).

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I have a Nationwide credit card too; however, I wonder if a Starling credit card would give instant notifications on spend?

It it plans to offer a CC and you get those sorts of notifications with section 75 protection I would sign up quickly!

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I would assume that would be included. It’s part of the feature set for current accounts (like Monzo) so I would think it’ll be exactly the same for CC.

Do Euro accounts also have that?

Where do you guys check for starling credit card ? I can’t find it on the app

They don’t offer a credit card

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Case in point:

I know it’s not the majority but you wouldn’t see people lining up out of other banks to give money away. Partly the reason why I prefer using Starling over Monzo - the feature set is basically on par but it feels more like a bank.

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While I agree with you about the need for Monzo to ‘professionalise’ for want of a better word

Yes, I can because for many years NatWest had one and this predated fintech etc.

It ultimately meet the same fate as Starling’s (i.e it was closed) though it did survive things like:

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I’m sure this is covered somewhere in this chat but what is the present situation with “pots” in Starling? The killer feature for me with Monzo is separation of funds and being able to pay bills etc from pots, as this has saved me needing multiple accounts. Can starling do that?

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Not yet. Anne has been trailing something different that’d have the same effect as paying from a bills pot for months but like most Starling ideas it seems to be taking forever to come to fruition.

Their Goals/Spaces function does let you segregate money, though. And has the advantage of offsetting against your overdraft if you’re into that sort of thing.

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I wonder if the credit card which is due soon will take up that kind of functionality, so rather than splitting off planned payments and bills, you’ll instead use the credit card to split off everyday elective card spending?

Perhaps tied in with just one line of credit, like where Starling’s overdraft and loan features are linked, and some clever accounting in the app, so you essentially just ‘settle up’ your spending at the end of the month whilst debits happen in the background from the main section?

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That would be exceptional.

I’d add just one thing: putting your discretionary spend in a pot/goal/space and clearly offset against the credit card so it’s out of the way until you settle up.

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Yes, I saw that being part of the “clever accounting” bit. It would fit with Starling’s offset borrowing features.

I’d even go with a zero-day interest-free credit card for that function, so I end up paying for that functionality (like loan interest is separate from offset overdraft interest but still within the one lending amount).

Or pay a Plus-style monthly fee for the account to make the credit card interest-free for a period, which would take Starling into the paid-for profitability zone.

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This just came through email. Interesting read how Starling has been performing and how they are heading to profitability by end of 2020

This was posted already, two weeks ago. You may wish to read the discussion from when it was published.

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Didn’t notice it. Just got an email today. Cheers

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