Sounds like Monzo may be a winner. If it works as above, it would suit me perfectly. I’ll take it for a test drive when the card arrives.
The only other things I use are notifications, savings goals, fee free foreign card use (rarely withdraw cash) and Google Pay. If they’re all available, which I think they are, I can see a CASS happening soon
I’m purely speculating in my previous posts - All my own opinions and I have no idea about what Starling really think.
I don’t think having a forum is a requirement for being “transparent and listening to customers” - Businesses have ticked those boxes for years without the need for an internet forum.
That’s not a massive issue. I just looked at the card transaction list and if I found one from the merchant of the correct value it marked it as paid this month. Using source currency made it accurate, and allows me to tie specific transactions from a merchant, rather than all transactions from them. This means I could have a recurring transaction from a merchant that’s tracked, but a one off transaction to the same merchant wouldn’t cause issues
Starling isn’t and don’t. Never were, never did. At least the forum was a token effort. They should just own their ethos, which is a legacy attitude and a lovely app (which they’re managing to mess up with every iteration, loans/savings and payee changes being the latest)
Oh, and something to do with an advert with an older woman with numbers written all over her, which I saw at a cinema and which left the crowd openly laughing.
I have no real opinion on that, because I just don’t know.
There was a discussion recently about something (I think it was the loans), and Starling implied they had done “extensive customer research” into the way it was implemented.
I have no reason to doubt them, and I’m sure you’ll argue you have no reason to believe them - I guess both would be true.
Can’t say I was ever fond of the adverts. Perhaps they appealed to a different user base…
A forum isn’t essential to be transparent and listening, if you’re actually transparent and listen. I’ve yet to find any evidence that Starling are transparent or that they listen. In fact, I’ve seen a large body of evidence to the contrary.
That’s fine and their choice, but to claim it in the ethics statement and in their public statements is a pure fabrication. If you’ve ever tried feeding back via CS or Twitter and seen the copy/paste response with zero follow up, it’s hard to argue otherwise.
As I said, I always found James to be very fair. He listened to my points when he had a go at me for sharing the card design, and before he went back to uni there was an effort behind the scenes to improve things - that I do know. Now he has gone back to uni, the original group are not around (Sarah/James and even Patrick), so its unsurprising.
Being more on topic of Starling Vs Monzo features, rather than the forum closing down, I do have to say that the sign-up is a bit better with Starting.
I’ve just signed up to Monzo and now can’t do anything in the app until the card arrives. With Starling, I could add the card to Google Pay in the app and immediately start using the account. I could also use the weekend to start adding payees etc and get a head start, whereas with Monzo it’s going to have to wait until next weekend (I’m working away all week).
I could see this happening eventually, but not so suddenly. I do think it has been a knee jerk response. I largely agree with what you’re saying, but I prefer it closed over people acting more positive to please Starling. Giving a false sense of things being all well and good wouldn’t help them or the customers.
I thought you could add payees and do bank transfers?
It’s stuck on a screen with the only option being “activate my card”, which I don’t have yet
I think you could with the prepaid card, but I know from experience that you can’t do anything in the app until the card arrives with the current account. It is one area I was disappointed when joining Monzo. I fed this back in app and had a reasonable discussion around it; I believe it’s just not something important right now but may be changed eventually.
I hope someone else can find it, because I can’t.
I remember @cookywook posting (around 2 months ago), that Monzo were allowing people to “do more” with their account before the card arrived.
I remember, because I said I was disappointed you couldn’t use the card, and if you can’t use the card… What’s the point?
The answer was… “Setting up direct debits, bank transfers, adding payees etc”.
Or something like that.
notifications
savings goals
fee free foreign card use
Google Pay.
OK - Someone needs to find it 
I’ve tried and failed - Someone must remember??
I remember seeing this, but I thought it was way back and regarding the prepaid account. 
I set up my Joint Account yesterday and I can already use my existing Payees from my Personal Account (better than Starling) and have done so to set-up Standing Orders. I’ve also setup two Direct Debits using the account details that I got straight away, obviously as I only set them up last night, they haven’t shown up in-app just yet.
I am however missing the ‘add to Apple Pay’ and start using the account straight away function.
Other thing is that the Profile logos are pulled in from the users own accounts and that also works!
The thing that originally turned me off Monzo was when they introduced the £200 limit on foreign ATM withdrawals before charging a fee. Starling still manage to provide this service without any fees, which is a big plus point. I’d love to think that Monzo will revisit this decision at some point in the future but I suspect not.
One thing I like about Monzo is the round-up feature, something a lot of users requested via the Starling community and even got a mention in their last roadmap but, unfortunately, they recently confirmed it’s not being developed.
I do prefer the Starling look and feel but Monzo’s recent “big list” really peaked my interest. I was really impressed with the communication they put out, the pace of development and the updates on what was achieved.
I’m curious how you’ll know if Starling do start to cap ATM limits. Given past communications, you’ll likely first find out by hitting the limit while abroad. 
