Genuinely sad to this as a discussion over at Starling:
https://community.starlingbank.com/t/leaving-starling-thinking/2590/59
I’ve never quite felt the need to put one bank down to lift another one up, so I take no pleasure in seeing that folk aren’t happy with Starling at the moment. 
I think the guys in this thread do make some genuinely relevant points, and all is being said from a good place. I reckon there’s plenty of people who feel the same towards Monzo!
To be honest, I disagree with the commonly held notion that Starling and Monzo are not in competition. There is only one facebook, google etc and if monzo are to dominate the financial world, starling will have to fall by the wayside 
I think a lot will depend on how Starling responds.
Monzo has had its moments, which (in my view) they’ve generally risen well to:
Ha! I’d rather Monzo focused on taking market share from the incumbents rather than a new bank that might only have a couple of hundred thousand customers (at the most?)
I think you’re right about the platform thing - but I’m not sure that one platform monopolies are good things, tbh. Though they do only tend to work when there’s only one or two in each geography, though…
Completely agree!
It’ll be interesting to see if Megan over at Starling responds to the 12-month ban if you close your account (that no other bank I can think of has)!
Depends what you want from a bank account. If you want a completely finished product then neither Monzo or Starling are going to be suitable. If you want to see an evolving product then they’re great. Personal preference
The points made on that thread are spot on, and must smart somewhat because those people were pretty vocal advocates on the forum. I don’t think the posters are trying to big–up the alternatives, more highlight that Starling needs to seriously up its communication game.
Both Starling and Monzo have quite basic (improving, but bit by bit) products with key features missing. But the difference between them, for me, is that 
Monzo genuinely seems to empower its employees to be able to improve the experiences of customers, whereas the customer is definitely not front and centre at Starling, and neither is the forum. Starling employees seem quite surprised, sometimes, when forum members report that they don’t like some product or policy change, or when people report experiences that go against what they expected in development.
I’ve only ever had poor–to–mediocre experiences with their actual in–app customer services: Not actually hearing what I’m really asking; unsure of answers to questions; promising to return having checked something out and never coming back. And the actual platform, which logs you out as soon as it can, often mid–exchange, is appalling.
I’ve only ever had one experience of fraud on a bank account, ever – a couple of months ago I awoke to find a Starling notification for an attempted purchase at Harrods, or that’s what the notification said.
When I reported this, I was told it was not Harrods, but attempted in Harrogate. When I asked why the notification clearly couldn’t make sense in that situation, the customer service agent was dumbfounded. They didn’t seem to get why I couldn’t understand how Harrods came to be on the notification. “Harrogate” in that scenario doesn’t make sense – you don’t have notifications which tell you where transactions are made. They didn’t even want to see the screenshot above. They said they would look into it, and despite me prompting (to another agent because, of course, the chat got logged off) I never heard anything else.
I absolutely know for sure I’d have had a response from Monzo.
Starling is very slick and I too wish it the best, but if Monzo keeps up its company ethos of placing the customer at the heart of their bank, it’ll be absolutely fine.
In the main I think unhappy is a bit strong. A will to do better for the majority…
I can’t comment on whether the culture of other companies allows them to do this or not because I genuinely don’t know but this is the thing I love the most about working here. I have honestly never faced any kind of blocker when trying to give any customer the absolute best experience possible.
Even when I used to work until 4am, and we were dealing with some very complex situations in the early hours with only a few people working, we were able to have a quick, thorough discussion and work out the best way to resolve.
It’s been commented a few times that we’re a customer service company who offer a financial/banking app, rather than the other way around, and this completely rings true, and I personally believe this is one of the main reasons behind our extremely high retention rates. Even when we might have gotten things wrong, we’ve always learned from them and been very visible about our process, to the point where people can see that we at least were trying to do the right thing.
This is obvious from the extensive staff engagement on this forum @simonb and while I may not agree with every decision Monzo makes, it is clear the company encourages customer interaction, criticism or praise.
Today, over on Starling, by way of comparison, it is claimed staff don’t want to engage on their forum.
One thing I particularly like about Starling is that you seem to have alot more control over the card. For example you can lock and unlock contactless, online transactions, chip and pin and cash machines. I think it’s something that I would like to see in Monzo as well.
I don’t think any one bank will ever hold a monopoly tbh.
(and nor should they)
But doesn’t Monzo want to grow to the point where it’s that large as to potentially be a monopoly of sorts? 
We do, but not necessarily as a bank - we want to help people manage their own money and getting a banking license and offering the service is the best way to disrupt the industry.
that’s the goal, which is more about giving you a better overview than holding your money for you.
You mean “not necessarily just as a bank” right?
I’m struggling to see how that is possible without holding the money and seeing the ins and outs. ?
Don’t think so. I’m sure I’ve read interviews where Tom has said that in a decade Monzo might not even be a bank…
(Being a bank is the way into the market - and disrupting the status quo. When there are commodity banking services that offer instant notifications, real time processing etc, Monzo won’t need to worry about those and can focus on the integration/platform/market layer).
So I should hold on before moving any more direct debits over?
Understanding how banking is used helps us get there, so pls no (don’t hold on)