Starling in App Store favourites - quite an achievement.
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So starling has now started supporting Fitbit pay and I donāt think we can deny that they are ahead in the implementation phase, the question I have therefore is why they seemingly arenāt as popular?
So before starting this Iām gonna have a crack at calculating number of starling users, they seeming donāt like discussing this (maybe its embarassing compared to monzos awesome growth) https://community.starlingbank.com/t/how-many-starling-users/1613, also I note that some of you guys are on there.
Monzo as I speak has ~450k users and of those on the forums there have been 24.5k users, which gives a 5.44% forum use rate for monzo, the same % of active forum users for starling (916) would give an estimate of starling users to be ~16800 which seems very low so I would therefore assume a lower forum user percentage. But even so their users seem to be a lot fewer in number.
My question is this, why do people choose monzo (a currently less-implemented product) over starling? It canāt just be the free ATM withdrawals, personally I like the āfeelā better in monzo but Iād just be interested to hear other peoples opinions.
tl;dr I think starling has a lot fewer members for a more implemented (so far) bank, why do we think that is?
I think itās just timing. Theyāre further ahead but they opened their doors a year or so later so momentum is still building.
I am afraid this thread will become a Starling bashing but as someone currently with both (But leaving Starling on hold after getting Andriod Pay) I would say for me personally itās all about the communication and keeping people like involved. Actually listening to the community not having a forum just for the sake of it.
Monzo seem more up front and are not hesitant to take the blame they seem to correct the wrongs and genuinely care for customer finances with the aim to help us manage our money better.
At Starling, I get the feeling they are more like a big corporation with aim to take advantage to āFirstsā to get more customers. They are not open and community is just there as an addon I guess.
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I guess that this ties into the fact that they donāt actually release real usage figures, perhaps more indicative of the culture in the bank, I was reading this earlier Starling CEO Anne Boden on Profitability, Competition, Customer Numbers and obviously she has come from being a high-up at another bank, I think it must be fairly hard to break the mindset and culture of traditional banking.
I enjoy that tom is active on here, he seems to be the face of doing something differently and actually speaking to your customers rather than just pretending to be modern and innovative.
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Update: Starling had 500 customers in April so much further behind (at that point) in terms of users
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Well I must be causing ructionsā¦ 
We being stalked?
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Megan should follow me, I send n00ds 
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megan followed me until I advised her that her then boyfriend shouldnāt be displaying his card numbers off on twitter while he was on holiday - saying Monzo wouldnāt display card details but Starling might be different - CEO Anne then re tweeted the picture showing all his card details to her followers , before taking the picture down - Megan then gave me a mouthful and then unfollowed me 
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Lol. I have nothing further to add regarding the competency of Starling
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hey we have all made mistakes in our exuberance to display our cards - I did the same but Jonas from Monzo told me not to - oops
I have accounts with Monzo and starling, I love both ideas I have been with Monzo since it was mondo so been more loyal to Monzo but a little competition never hurt anyone it seems Starling are releases lots of different extras all the time whereas Monzo are staying quiet personally I think Monzo will be worth the wait 
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Omgā¦ how can you be the boyfriend of someone working in a BANK and still be stupid enough to post your card details online? 
Why not? Iām doing my best to educate my wife on issues of ācyber securityā, but she is not me. She doesnāt know everything I know. (And I only know a tiny fraction of what she knows.) She would make mistakes that I wouldnāt. (And I do make mistakes that she wouldnāt - plenty of them.)
I would find it absolutely plausible that someone working at a bank might be loving someone who has no clue at all about finance or security and v.v.
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Yeah but at this point it should be common sense. Being the partner of someone working in a bank is just adding insult to injury
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I agree with your first sentence, but not with your second
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Fair enough, weāll agree to disagree! 
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Dig deep, Hughā¦
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Thereās actually a twitter feed trying to point out the sheer amount of people who post their card detailsā¦
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