Just looking at the debit card, I’ll give you unlimited ATM withdrawals abroad if you need that kind of thing. But, how does:
apply? It’s the same beyond ATM withdrawals from what I can tell.
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Yes, that was hilarious. Having been criticised for lack of communication, they thought the best course of action was to present an exclusive to the forum with the redesigned debit cards but then expect no–one to talk about them anywhere else because they had yet to go to press.
You couldn’t make it up.
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I can relate to this. While I never really used Starting as a main account there was something about the early design which seemed crisp and elegant. And I liked the way that it was finished - the little animations on the money transfer screen, the way that the payees screen worked, the thought given to the marketplace (not so much how it worked, but the ability to disconnect apps from accessing my data etc).
At the time, Monzo was going through the prepay to bank transition, but still seemed friendlier, had enough functionality (with the promise of more) and had great customer service. And, unlike Starling, it felt they listened - and cared.
I think at that point, Starling’s product could have gone one of two ways. There was a point when they were rolling out features what felt like every week - the momentum felt huge. But then I remember a report from a fintech(?) conference in Wales where Anne was quoted as saying “the time for innovation is over” (or something similar) - and that she now wanted to monetise what she had. A fundamental misstep.
And then this happened:
It feels to me that Starling clutched defeat from the jaws of victory. No roadmap. No strategy. They had a lead and squandered it. And every successive update seems to make the app worse. I mean, just how do you manage that?!
I’m disappointed, frankly.
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This
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Sort of adds more fuel to the fire that the Joint Accounts were a knee-jerk reaction to Monzo announcing them in Preview rather a fully fledged and thought through addition to their offering.
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There was a conversation on the Starling forum (which I can no longer link to!) where someone from Starling said there were only 20 days between deciding to launch joint accounts and doing it. Someone then replied and pointed out that would put Starling’s decision to launch joint accounts a couple of days after Monzo’s “joint accounts coming soon” blog post.
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Sorry to cut through the recent decision reaction but on a more mundane point, I’ve just had a letter from First Direct telling me about their new interest rates following August’s base rate rise.
I seem to remember Starling already stated theirs will remain at 0.5% with no plans for a change but I obviously don’t have a forum to check that on any more 
. Am I remembering correctly?
Ha. Didn’t think of the FAQ area, thanks.
Interesting to see how long it will last, at least in its current form. It seems a huge waste of Discourse to be a glorified FAQ list, and they’ve shown themselves very cost sensitive (previously disabling status updates due to ‘cost’).
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Having taken the time to write them all, I’d guess that Discourse may remain as the depository (to avoid binning the text) until someone copies and pastes all of the text onto a web page somewhere. So… next Tuesday?
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What’s firsts new rate?
FD always did 0% on credit interest in their current account, whatever the base rate, when I was with them. I wonder if this has changed? 
Nothing great, everything up by 0.1% (ISA to 0.85%, Bonus Savings to 0.6% and Savings Accounts actually moving from 0.05 to 0.15 which I still consider as effectively 0) except CAs which remain 0.
They used to pay 0.1% CA interest a couple of decades ago…
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My web app only serves two functions, and I’d prefer to replace them with native functionality rather than having to do it myself.
- Round up transactions (all types). Up to nearest £1 below £30, up to nearest £5 between £30 and £50 and up to £10 for anything over £50
- Track Direct Debits, Standing Orders and recurring card payments left to go out this month, then tell me my “available until pay day” amount. For cards it tracks by merchant ID plus source currency amount, as I have multiple subscriptions from one vendor so tracking by amount let’s me track multiple transactions from them. Using source currency amount means it copes with exchange rate variations.
I’ve ordered a Monzo card today. If the above could be done natively, I’d immediately do a CASS.
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So the first one, you can do 2 ways, IFTTT and a Google sheet to trigger back to monzo. Or in a few lines of code can do it via free tier AWS API/lambda. The round up built into app only does to nearest pound
Second a bit more difficult to do yourself but Monzo tell you direct debit amounts the day before payment, advise if it’s increased or decreased and make an estimate for next month’s in your budget.
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Sorry to re-hash this from 3 hours ago, but I’ve only just seen it.
I’m disappointed the forum was shut so quickly, but I don’t think it was a big FU - Can you imagine the discussion that would have happened if they’d left it open?
If people are getting upset about font sizes (which is entirely their right to do so if they feel that way), there would have been a meltdown if Starling had said
“Hey, this hasn’t worked out, so we are closing the forum… Feel free to discuss this for the next few days”.
My point was that the percentage of Starling’s customer base who would be upset by the forum closing, would likely be less than 1%. Seeing as a forum is important to those customers, Monzo would be a better fit.
99% of Starling customers won’t care, and probably didn’t even know it existed (figures are completely guessed here, but I doubt it’s far from the truth).
So I don’t think they are treating their customers badly - I think they never quite to grips with the forum aspect, and took the decision to close it down. Say what you want, but there are pros and cons to swift decisions (just look at the on going saga before Monzo finally decided to stop debit card top ups - People were shouting for them to simply “make the decision”).
People seem to be comparing the way Starling handled the community to the way Monzo does - They are two very very different ways of working.
The one major plus point the Monzo community has (aside from the sheer number of contributors, and the balance of opinion slightly tipping the more positive side of things), is the fact the Monzo staff on this forum seem to have autonomy on decision making, Q and A’s and generally being able to “speak on behalf of Monzo” in an absolute way.
I always felt the Starling community was created, but with a big old caveat that “No one can speak in absolute terms - If you need answers, wait for Anne or Megan”.
That may be unfair, but it was only when Anne or Megan got involved that a controversial topic was sorted out to a degree (that’s not to say I didn’t think the staff over there did a good job, because I think they did. It’s just I felt they were operating with one hand tied behind their back at times).
Lastly, and I’ve said this before, but I have absolutely no doubt that the comments from users on the forum contributed to Starlings decision to shut it. Most of the time, the comments were valid (all be it, increasingly negative in recent months), and that’s fine in general, but when there is no one on the opposing side, it just becomes one sided very quickly.
Monzo has that balance of 65% positive (maybe more), and 35% less so (in my opinion - would love to know what others think the balance is).
That’s probably close to perfect for a forum like this - You get constructive discussions, ideas for new features, issues with existing features, and generally a well balanced discussion.
On the Starling forum, it became 80% negative - In part, due to the passion the users had (many of whom are here now), and part due to people becoming disillusioned.
Obviously the negativity was coming from somewhere, and unfortunately that was Starling’s own doing with the release of buggy apps, miscommunicated loans and other bits and pieces.
Ironically… This will probably improve dramatically now they don’t have to worry about a forum!
Sorry for the slight essay, I just feel it’s worth taking a step back and looking at it objectively.
For Starling, the forum was never part of the package (not really anyway) - The fact it’s gone, whilst sad, is not going to make any difference to them in the slightest (and if anything, will give their product more direction, as they don’t need to listen to the masses - This will either put them out of touch with people, or it’ll allow them to trust in their own direction).
For Monzo, this community is a hive of activity and whilst small in comparison to the overall user numbers - It’s clearly a huge resource and focus for Monzo, which fit their culture and has been integral from day one.
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I do wonder if they will sell out to someone like RBS in the long run. They don’t take criticism well do they?
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Isn’t this basically Summary?
Granted, you need to have all your income and outgoings from your Monzo account, but properly set up Summary tells me how much discretionary spend (‘available until pay day’) I have left. You should be able to tag multiple subscriptions from the same merchant as recurring, too. I don’t think it will handle currency fluctuations, though, so things might be a few pennies out every month, if your transactions are overseas.
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This is all good and fine, but Starling now need to get rid of all the guff on their website about being transparent and about listening to customers, which was what their brand was built upon.
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