Are either of these necessary to operate as a bank?
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Depends, Iâd say both are pretty important if you want to be inclusive of all potential customers.
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Monese also have a 5 Star rating on Trustpilot
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Strange, then, to specify US only and not all the other non-UK potential customers. 
Gender neutral / definable titles would be a quick win, one wouldâve thought, though.
Monese costs money per month 
yes that was said earlier in the thread
Just quoting this as itâs most recent. Would no title be preferable? Do we actually need titles, or just go with the name we were given(or changed to)?
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It should be a choice. Some want them some donât. Better to chose than be forced either way.
Someone may be Mr Jim Beam and may like being called Jim by Customer Operations but he may not like being spoken to so familiarly by someone he does not know and prefers to be addressed as Mr Beam.
Using one mode of address over another is not as good as using the one prefered by that individual customer.
Personally if I ring a call center in a good mood with an enquiry I tell them to call me by my christian name, if I am ringing cross with a complaint I expect them to call me Mr (surname). So I may wish to use different forms of address depending on the circumstances.
Itâs only US âpersonâ customers they ban (due to CRS standards and them not being set up to report accounts to HMRC).
And yes, gender-neutral titles would be easy, to me, it shows a rather out-of-touch management - like a typical legacy bank.
Like Monzo does? Yes, thatâs great to me. Personally, Iâm indifferent to being called Mx or no title. I know the older generations tend to like them, and I respect that as well⌠so it should be optional, and, ideally, a free text field.
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I pay no attention to titles if there or not, if it needs filled I do, if not I donât. They donât mean anything to me. Define older generation? 
Interesting question.
Previously, various legacy banks have told me:
- We have to put your title on the card for security reasons
- We can only put your initial, not your first name, on the card for security reasons
- We have to put your full name on the card for security reasons
Different banks. Different bonkers policies. No consistency and no explanation of security reasons
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This impression might be due to when you signed up to Monzo (I obviously donât know when this was, just thinking that it might have been the second half of this year). Last year and the beginning of this year, there were frequent improvements to the Prepaid app and service, and the pace of development seemed fast. For most of this time, Starling hadnât released anything publicly, so there was no Starling app to use.
As the focus has shifted to developing and launching the current account after getting their banking licence, Monzoâs development of the prepaid service definitely slowed significantly. In a similar time-frame, Starling launched their app and have been adding/changing features. As someone else said, this is not a criticism of either company, just different approaches.
But in terms of your impression that the prepaid card was âstaticâ, I can definitely say it didnât feel that way earlier on in its life! And I look forward to the pace of change and features picking up again once the CA migration is substantially underway/nears completion.
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Itâs security theatre, which is something people tend to love (look how many people want to have a PIN on the app, despite the face that if someone got into your phone itâs game over anyway.
Unfortunately, this particular little piece of useless security theatre (authentication by presumption of gender) tends to hurt those of us who are trans/non-binary/genderqueerâŚ
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they will spout any old crap to justify their systems
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There needs to be greater awareness and empathy from organisations on this subject.
To have a brand new challenger Bank start up without consideration to this is disappointing and not forward-thinking.
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Totally agree. And it âfeelsâ discriminatory whatever their justification when it clear to us there is no real need for it.
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Exactly, Starling leaves a really bad taste in my mouth on several levels (Iâm a US citizen and transâŚ). To have a âchallengerâ bank basically say âwe have no place for people like youâ is⌠disappointing.
Monzo, however, couldnât be handling things better (they actually know how to report to the US government, heck maybe one day theyâll let me start a crowdfunding campaign for the renunciation fees 
Iâll need it for gender transition anyway⌠donât want to handle that nightmare as a US citizen in the current environment). And they recognise that gender is irrelevant to banking.
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I had exactly the same issue with Starling, and at that point you canât even contact support via that âchatâ.
So I just didnât bother with it and uninstalled it.
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