Starling Discussion & Feedback

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I really don’t understand why there’s this fixation in some quarters on looking for this ‘parity’ from two organisations both doing their best to offer the product/service that they want to offer. It’s just nonsensical to me.

It’s not a competition and it’s not a race. If either ‘side’ of this comparison is spending their time watching the ‘other side’ and trying to match them in features or in time then I’d argue very strongly that ‘that side’ have no ideas of their own so probably aren’t the company to use.

I very much doubt either Monzo or Starling wastes too much concern about ‘parity’ since they both seem to have pretty clear ideas of what they want to offer on their own terms.

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123

Its parity between the same organisation. Monzo android v monzo iOS

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Like a lot of people …monzo was brand loyalty. I hold it because I like alot about monzo and want to see where it goes.

But the starling app (ON Android!) Just works better for my needs currently.

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125

This Ian the Starling thread. That’s a different conversation.

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I can only speak for the Android apps for both Monzo and Starling. There are certain things I prefer about Monzo, some of which are intangible, but the Starling offering is undoubtedly more fully featured at the moment.

I was keen to check out Pots on Android but was slightly underwhelmed by the offering. Starling’s Goals allow you to set up recurring payments for one, and the whole concept has been implemented more effectively IMHO.

Starling and Monzo will no doubt have different priorities, in part driven by feedback from their customers. I am sure that both will mature and develop quickly and will look very different six months from now. However, unless Monzo up the pace of development considerably, it is difficult for me to see how they can catch up with Starling in the short term.

There are doubtless many people like me who like tech and like trying out new things, and I haven’t committed to moving my salary and DD’s yet, so I can jump from one to the other as the mood suits me. However, many will just want to pick a new bank that works and will then stick with it. At the moment, at least on Android, I feel that Starling is a better proposition.

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127

Which highlights my main question. Why do you think they would want to? They may be heading in a completely different direction.

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There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force Monzo.

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129

I personally am glad Starling exists, it creates a ‘tension’ (maybe wrong word) that can only lead to a better product on both sides in my opinion. But like legacy banks I doubt Starling will fail if Monzo rises, they will both have their customer base.

Personally I love Monzo, it just fits my style and what I want, I looked briefly at Starling and it felt too corporate or sterile for me (but that’s just for me)

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130

If some people here have difficulty picking an arbitrary (and entirely unnecessary) ‘side’ between :monzo: Monzo and Starling, I can’t wait until Tandem and Atom launch.

:popcorn:

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131

N26 for me :smiley: .

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You know whats weird about apple pay is that the amount you are paying does not come up on my iphone so when I put my fingerprint on to authorise it i dont actually know how much I am agreeing to,
This has happened a few times where I authorise before I can actually see an amount.

I dont suppose anyone knows if there is a fix for this

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try Android Pay instead :wink: only joking

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134

Good old internet trolls, your around every corner… I dont think my samsung tab s tablet supports it and I dont carry it around as its huge, its easier to just carry my monzo card, but surely the point is not to have to carry it, as I am sure you know. I am happy with my iphone, It might not have a sd card or wireless charging but I have already paid for it.

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That’s what I did this week

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If you’re paying at a physical location like a shop, the iPhone doesn’t display the amount. The amount is only displayed on the payment terminal.

Your fingerprint is effectively authorising your iPhone to act like a debit card, and will work for a terminal ready for contactless.

So you can authorise your iPhone with your fingerprint, because you know you want to pay via contactless, then after authorising, move your iPhone closer to the terminal after you’ve confirmed the amount.

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137

Choosing or using a Bank is a very personal thing. Monzo vs Starling vs Legacy bank vs another challenger bank, while a fun discussion, ultimately every person or business will have different needs.

Monzo might work for one person, Starling could work for someone else, and for others, a challenger bank is not an option yet.

If you are in a position too, by all means research both banks (or any bank), see who works for you. Someone else on here might disagree, but thats ok, their setup might be different to yourself. People do get connected to their banks because its a personal decision.

But I think I just got to the point that when someone defends any company/bank etc while I appreciate the brand loyalty ultimately everyone is different. :grinning:

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138

What is interesting about Starling is how much quicker they’re able to move than Monzo (either that, or they’re showing how slow Monzo moves). Apple Pay and FitBit pay already - more sophisticated “pots” functionality. Better Android/iOS parity and cheaper OD terms.

The reason I moved from legacy to Monzo is because Monzo are a forward moving bank and technology and they’ll always be ahead of the high street banks, regardless of whether the high streets bring in the features that make Monzo so attractive right now. I am worried that Starling will to do Monzo as what Monzo does to the traditional high street banks.

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140

I think it’s worth remembering Starling had around a year head start on Monzo with building the current account. And on top of that Monzo had built the prepaid product whilst building the current account.

With regards to Apple Pay, there are 3 components (that I know of) on the bank side that are needed for Apple Pay to be work. The first is with the payment network (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX etc), the second is with the bank, and the third is with the payment processor.

Obviously, Visa, MasterCard and AMEX have sorted their end out.

And obviously all banks need to integrate Apple Pay into their actual stack.

But with regards to the payment processor, Starling is outsourcing it’s payment processing to a third party, GPS (http://globalprocessing.net). GPS supports Apple Pay, so for Starling, there isn’t really any work to be done here. Monzo on the other hand, have decided to build their own payment processor. This is because of the frequent outages GPS have had (even quite recently), which still plague Starling.

As you can imagine, building a payment processor isn’t easy (the fact there are successful businesses setup to do just this, shows). And then on top of that: build Apple Pay into the payment processor.

It’s also worth noting that Apple’s agreements are usually very stringent, particularly around testing, and I imagine Apple requires Monzo to do enormous amounts of testing (particularly on the payment processor side, that Starling has skipped).

And all of this is assuming Monzo are even working on Apple Pay :wink:

Monzo creating their own payment processor will only pay dividends in the future, as any further outages with GPS will not effect Monzo, but still effect GPS’s customers like Starling.

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141

Monzo shouldn’t be using excuses for not introducing new features. Yes, they started behind but that just means you have to work harder to catch up. Yes Monzo created their own payment processor so that is taking time including transfering people over, but that shouldn’t be detrimental to the actual consumer facing product itself. I have had the current account since August 1st, and in 5 months only pots have been half-introduced as a main new feature (maybe Android Pay too for those on Android) and they are partly taking away a main feature many people joined Monzo for (the foreign ATM fees which I don’t care about to be honest).

N26 will enter the UK market in a few months with a very mature app and its own banking infrastructure and the competitors are continuing to move forward. I know Monzo are working extremely hard with all the backend stuff right now, so I apologise if this seems like a complaint when it isn’t. I appreciate all the hard work Monzo do. However, it is the reality of the modern world that people are impatient and fickle. They want it all now, not tomorrow.

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Android Pay is live and working so most of the infrastructure is done on the payment processor’s side, all that’s left to do is the integration with Apple’s proprietary APIs to allow users to add their card via the Wallet app (where the iPhone would need to talk to Monzo in order to generate a virtual card number for use for Apple Pay) and very extensive testing which Apple insists on.