Starling Discussion & Feedback

Which of course you ARE! I agree with you and I’m a Monzo investor, I think they are both good products but, for me, thats a biggie, you ARE in credit with the bank. Isn’t that the whole point of pots or goals? If you are going to argue its a separate “thing” then why not just open another account (savings)? To me that’s the whole point of goals/pots/spaces, you are merely penciling in a need in your main account.
I should also add that Starling joined my Fintech party later than Monzo but delivered first on, Standing Orders, Direct Debits, Apple Pay, Euro account, business account, joint account, multiple accounts with one payee.

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I have a Starling account but it just sits there doing nothing (and has done for the past year) because development just seems stagnant and there’s nothing about the account that might encourage me to use it. I know people are getting the Euro account (not that I have :cry:) but I have no clue how it’s meant to be used. I don’t think you can use the card with it, which means it’s of no use for me to stash Euros for holidays etc.

At least when the community was there, there was some means to encourage things to happen (well, try to) or get an idea of the direction they are heading in, or even communicate with staff members. Now I’m completely at a loss, even their Twitter offers little info.

Did Starling ever offer shares? I can’t recall if they did in the early days? See, this is something I’d be able to search a community forum for!

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All comes down to usage I guess.

For my needs, Monzo hasn’t done anything for over a year that changes how I use the account - All of the development has been on other things.

I only know about them because of the forum.

Whist I don’t use Starling regularly, I do have the Euro account which has replaced Revolut (that one time per year of going on holiday and paying for it in Euros).

Nope, I don’t believe they did.

I actually think the removal of the community was a good thing for them.

I find that Starling and Monzo tried too hard to engage with the community to shape the future of the product - I’d personally rather trust in their vision, and do it 100% how they see it based on their research… Rather than put it out there in the community, and tweak it constantly (never fully settling on the idea).

Or worse yet, put it out to the community, and do your own thing anyway.

Either way, I just want to see the Joint Account on both Monzo and Starling developed a bit more! It’s the forgotten love child of the bank accounts…

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The only thing that makes me think is interest bearing pots. Why would I not just chuck all my money in a Cash ISA through Monzo while my account is “overdrawn”? I guess there could be the differentiation between normal pots and savings pots, but that might get messy.

Because the OD fees would be more than the interest you’d get (if I’ve understood correctly?)

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Sorry yeah - if Monzo used the Starling approach of no OD fees while your account (including pots) is in credit. Should’ve been more clear!

Ah OK…

So…

Pot = £1,000 (accruing interest).
Balance = £-800

You are still £200 in credit, pay no fees on your “overdraft” and still earn interest…

Is that what you are saying?

Yeah absolutely - to me, it would seem like the most logical thing to do if pot balances were counted with regards to overdrafts. Presumably if Monzo ever did decide to include pot balances, then interest accruing pots would be excluded for that exact reason.

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Well a cash ISA might be called a “pot” but it isn’t, its a separate account otherwise it wouldn’t be an ISA or it wouldn’t be a current account. My view on pots is they are merely savings goals within your current account, promises made to be broken. With Lloyds you could just open a savings account at the click of a mouse and put the money there from your current account. Fine, thats been around for yonks. Pots were something different, or thats my view anyway. So a pot is just part of your current account and if thats the case you only go overdrawn when you run out of your cash and start spending the banks. If its interest bearing then its really a separate account not a pot, so why not just say if its interest bearing it doesn’t count?
O yes forgot that, interest on your current account, not great at starling but better than nothing.

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Yeah, I agree with @The_BrentM - Pots are just digitally ring fenced funds - There is no separate account number or anything.

If you put money in an ISA pot, then it could be excluded.

Heck, if you put it in any interest bearing pot, perhaps Monzo could exclude it (although I don’t think they should.

My amazing creative skills came up with the below, to illustrate how it looks in my head.

On the left, you’ve got Starling, who treat all the Pots/Goals as part of your account, and on the right, you’ve got Monzo who treat them separately…

This is pretty common knowledge, so adds very little to the discussion :joy: I just enjoy making circles…

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To be honest the Euro account currently is just somewhere to stash Euro’s BUT they are working on one card two currencies for it, very useful and I’m sure they will get there. I like Monzo but Starling have given me everything a need from my bank account and given it to me faster, MUCH faster than Monzo. I made the decision to go with them as principle account when Monzo were taking an age to get their full account bandwagon rolling and since I made that decision Starling have provided more features faster. But that said it really is not quite cigarette paper thin between the two, so Starling don’t get a blank cheque, thats competition.

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The reason Monzo give for not counting the money in non-interest bearing pots towards overdrafts is because they think it might confuse people and they want to make the difference between a Regular Pot and an interest bearing Savings Pot seemless.

NB: I’m not saying I necessarily agree with Monzo’s point of view that counting the money in non-interest bearing pots towards overdrafts makes things too confusing.

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I’m not disagreeing, but the decision was made long before Monzo showed any signs of offering interest (I think?)

I’m not someone who is a prolific user of Pots, so it doesn’t affect me - I just think it would be nice if they could make it work (and make it easy to understand).

If they wanted to, I’m sure they could do it.

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I remember @tom mentioning that it would become too confusing when would start linking savings accounts to pots, but I could be misremembering or just put two and two together (ie: overdrafts don’t take into account money in pots + Monzo stated early on they wanted to offer savings accounts from other providers as pots).

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It was. I first noticed it when they said they would charge an overdraft fee to customers who were in credit. You might remember that thread!

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How could I forget :joy:

Of course, what @awjdean is saying may be true - But I don’t remember that being the message I got at the time.

Like I’ve said recently (with regards to Monzo Plus), there seems to be quite a few instances where the potential “vision” and underlying thinking at Monzo HQ, isn’t necessarily communicated well to us mere mortals, and then it’s like a game of Chinese Whispers…

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Is this the new UKIP logo? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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This is one of my biggest annoyances with Monzo. They aren’t (so far as I know) different savings accounts with a different account number (like traditional banks) so there is no good reason why money in pots should not be counted as your overall balance.

Monzo certainly are making the same money from it, whether it’s in the pot or not.

On the Starling front though, I tried to log in and encountered some issues. Had to actually call them (!!) and the guy on the phone couldn’t have been less enthused about his job. Anyway the security was completely random, and I was asked about a payee on a specific day from a year and a half ago and because I couldn’t recall it, I didn’t pass security.

So he told me to hang up and call back again so I’d have a different representative with a different question to ask :roll_eyes:

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The ISA is a separate account with an account number, like a normal savings account. This wouldn’t be counted.

Pots are literally just a virtual spacing of your own money.

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That is the most bizarre security I’ve ever heard of! :joy:

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