But they also announced they’re working on the following-
Website banking
An under 16s account
Different colour cards for for joint accounts
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I wonder if , or how this could affect Starlings new business accounts that they have onboarded during this scheme, and Im not suggesting that Starling dont have any more funds from the taxpayer to hand out to the new business accounts, maybe Starlings 1bn of taxpayer loans isn’t classed as “small lenders” 
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Website is exciting.
I don’t know what Starling’s application backlog for these loans is, but I’d expect they’ll just start rejecting applications when the money dries up.
They appear to have gained many new business accounts by being part of the scheme, but I’d be sceptical how long many of the newly gained businesses will remain. No doubt they’ll have gained a significant amount of new customers who will stick around, but I’d also expect they’ve also gained many who just want the loan and thought Starling was their best/only route due to issues elsewhere.
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If starling beat monzo to the punch on both of these id expect them to catch up to monzo alot faster than we all expected.
How nice is it also to know whats the medium term aims, couldnt even guess what monzo are doing at the moment never mind want to achieve before the end of the year.
How the turn tables…
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A website would be amazing for Monzo.
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From an outside perspective, Monzo appear to be throwing the minimum possible version of various things to see what sticks. Unfortunately, the pace of development has slowed and many promising things have yet to be fleshed out (such as basic banking, payee management, etc.)
Personally, I’m not surprised that Starling is continuing on a relatively slow but steady pace as it has always done. However, I am surprised that Monzo has lost their pace of innovation and is beginning to fall behind on technology of all things.
That said, things are clearly changing inside Monzo and it will be interesting to see what this leads to.
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there was a post about Monzo business website some while ago that only needed a “flick of the switch” to implement for CAs 
…scratching head emoji …
“could be easily adapted”
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This seems to be the route Starling are going actually, with online business banking already available and personal ‘coming soon’.
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Does anyone know if you have to keep a personal account open in order to retain use of a joint account?
No idea
Monzo Joint Account user(s) here - not that I’ve tried to cancel my Personal Account (or that my wife has tried to cancel hers either), but I’m guessing you can’t.
The structure of Monzo (and Starling tbh) is based on the user which has access to a Personal/Joint/Business account - starting with the Personal account which is the ‘base’ account and built on.
Legacy banks treat this layering differently by basing it on an account rather than a user. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Source: Monzo - “Sign up is a breeze You’ll both need a regular Monzo account already.”
Source: Starling - “As long as you’ve both got a Starling personal account”
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Some news from Starling has arrived in my inbox today.
Pricing changes to existing services from 4th November
We’re introducing some new fees that come into effect on 4th November, but they’ll only affect you if you use these features.
Updates to the terms for Personal and Joint Accounts (GBP Accounts only):
- On the rare occasion that you need to send a CHAPS payment, it will cost £20 per payment. CHAPS is a payment system for sending large, same-day payments. You can continue to send payments via Faster Payments for free.
Updates to the terms for Personal and Joint Accounts (including GBP and Euro Accounts):
- Replacement cards will be charged at £5 per card. You’ll get one free replacement per year, and we won’t charge you when your old card expires.
New products for Personal and Joint Current Accounts
We’re excited to be launching a number of new products very soon. As such, we’ve updated our terms to outline how we’ll be charging for them. These new products are optional, and you’ll only be charged if you choose to subscribe.
A children’s Space and debit card (Starling Kite) will be charged at £2 per card per month.
A new version of our Connected card, with extra features, will be charged at £2 per card per month. If you already have a Connected card, it’ll continue to be free.
An additional GBP account (available on Personal and Joint Accounts) will be charged at £2 per account per month.
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Is this the long awaited alternative to bills pots?
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Interesting. I’m sure a lot of people will pick up on the fee for replacing cards. I’m sure the High Street will welcome the excuse to begin introducing per-event fees now overdrafts are reigned in.
Kids’ Space and debit card, additional account (I’d pay for that to separate spending and bills, if the budgeting is combined across the user) and Connected Card with extra functionality.
Recent tweets suggest internet banking and separate coloured Joint cards are imminent too. Good work Starling.
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Starling Kite is such an awful name, although the functionality may be welcome. That’s cheaper than GoHenry (£2.99 per month, per child), but I’d imagine Starling have not included any “do your homework” features for this? Still, I’ll hold fire on saying if it’s worth the fee until we see it in action. It might be good.
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One thing I will say is that Starling’s email is head and shoulders above the one I received from Monzo about their changes this week.
It’s much more clear and concise.
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Starling has done a simple statement. Agreed. But where’s the mention of replacement due to fraud or damage? Is that part of the free replacement? I guess we have to assume it is.
Of course, we could have discussed the minutiae of the card replacement rules on their forum, if they had one. So we don’t get a chance, whereas Monzo were here to answer questions, so…
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Id love to know what makes it different from a connected card, will the child be able to see the balance on an app etc?
Could this be the starling version of bills pot but get CRAs? Raises a good point on if wed be happy to pay for a bills pot. dont think i would tbh.
It’ll have a picture of a kite on the card I guess
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