I’d spotted this earlier today that says the testing is a little more robust than you suspected. Whether it’s robust enough (especially after the outage earlier this week) is another question:
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You’re completely right to be concerned by this, it’s not just you being overly DevOpsy. This is how we used to do stuff in the mid-noughties and you just don’t do it anymore.
It suggests what many have suspected about Starling, they’ve rushed to be first to market and have sacrificed proper practises along the way in order to get stuff out quickly.
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Possibly all true, but the bank is live nonetheless. For some of us, riding out the rough bits is part of the journey. The forum is only days old but the intensity of technical dialogue is growing and ideas are exciting and of course, challenging.
I hadn’t envisaged being a Starling customer, having already adopted a Monzo card, but there it is. I guess once Monzo has a current account, parts of this forum will feel less like the moral high ground.
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I’ve just joined Moneybox to test the Starling integration out. It looks like they still take a direct debit at the end of the week. The integration just means you see the Starling transactions in the Moneybox.
I was kind of expecting real-time transfers once I’d swiped the transaction to confirm the round up.
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Contactless transactions were not working on my starling card so after a few conversations, they are sending me out a new card. May be waiting a while 
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Depending on the features that you want, I agree that the 2 accounts are pretty much neck and neck, at the moment.
Having dealt with both Monzo and Starling’s customer service, Monzo’s is much much better.
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+1 for Monzo’s customer service compared to Starling.
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Starling find an image for even really small retailers which is cool.
I’ve used a kebab shop in North London and a hot dog stand in Denmark and they’ve both had a logo appear about a week later after the generic one at the first transaction.
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It’s definitely gathering pace in the Starling camp, with great ideas coming through and real dialogue with the Starling developer team.
Genuinely feels like a real gap opening up. This Monzo current account will need to surface soon, because endless chat about what features folk would like needs to land somewhere.
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Monzo have incorporated feedback from the community into every feature that’s been built so far. How many new features have been delivered, that were requested by Starling users, in the community that was launched 2 weeks ago?
I’m sure some will be but I don’t see any signs that the development will be quicker or more responsive than Monzo’s. So you might be getting a little ahead of yourself there…
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As a Starling and Monzo user I’m not sure there really is a genuine gap at the moment. I like both products and will continue to use both but, for me, I just like the feel and usability of Monzo more, it’s less bank like, if that makes sense.
Starling are starting to build a bit of momentum, particularly with last weeks upcoming features announcement and moving into the EU already, but they were starting from well behind Monzo anyway. I think what is holding Monzo back slightly at the moment is obviously the focus on launching the current account, meaning major new features are on hold until that is done.
Hopefully both Monzo and Starling will push each other on to bigger and better going forward, which is a good thing for all of us.
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Yep, the real winners will be both Monzo and Starling customers as each bank moves forward.
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If I am @alexs it’s probably because I’m excited to be part of that albeit late-to-the-party community. I suspect both Monzo and Starling will ultimately be the market leaders for some time to come.
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I’m waiting for the merger. Monling Bank.
And/or the creation of a ‘Monzo Feedback’ thread on their forum.
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and perhaps a monzo golden ticket thread on starlings forum ?
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Starling went down this morning at the same time as Monzo, seemingly for the same reason. Seeing as they don’t use Wirecard, who are usually to blame, it’ll be interesting to see what the issue was.
Revolut said it was their processor and all three share the same processor - GPS -
Monzo are planning to solve the issue by handling their processing for the current accounts though -
but as far as I know, Starling haven’t reported that they’re planning to do the same.
Daniel mentioned in the developer’s Slack channel that the accounts that they’re testing were still working fine this morning 
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Excuse my ignorance of the process but I thought Wirecard were the processor? It would be handy to see a digram for the route transactions take through the various bodies 
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