If you have a limited company. No sole trader support yet
That smacks of publicity stunt. Itâs the sole traders who seem to be looking for better business account options
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Is it any different to Monzoâs overdrafts, which are not available for all to apply? (Unless they are now in which case I retract statement)
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fair play to Starling they do very well with publicity - Business accounts - a very specific limited company , not available if you have two or more significant shareholders ??? , which excludes a lot of ltd companies - same slow roll out of these sort of features as Monzo with overdrafts 
in case they get caught out by taking on too much risk ?
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(promotion of pots) * (selective overdrafts)
= gentle encouragement to save your âoverdraftâ
= no fees/interest
= empowering customers?
like Coconut.
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As far as Iâm aware, Monzo made it clear from the beginning that the overdrafts would launch in a âclosedâ beta - whereas Starling announced business accounts for sole traders as well as limited companies and endud up only offering the latter.
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in fairness Monzo cocked up overdrafts communications as well
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Itâs all over the Monzo website as being ramped up now. No mention of closed beta. Compare that with the starling business page it says limited companies only with sole traders later. To me these are the same as it stands.
Iâd need to look back on the announcements to see who said what
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Ah - I stand corrected.
The product that Starling & Monzo are offering is essentially the same. There are currently a few minor differences. Monzo has Coin Jar, Starling doesnât. Starling pays interest Monzo doesnât, etc, etc.
The biggest difference that I see is in the approach to communication.
Monzo is like the person whoâs friends with everyone they meet within 15 minutes of meeting. Very open, you pretty much know everything thatâs going on. There are times when youâre overloaded.
Starling is like the person whoâs much more reserved and carefully provides the information that they think you need to know. And, theyâre always careful to present themselves in a good light.
Nothing wrong with either approach. As long as it doesnât impact how you want to use the account.
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like Starling have free foreign ATM withdrawals, overdrafts are open to all subject to status, they have SEPA and SWIFT payments, and IBANâŚthat is more than Minor! I hope Monzo spend less time on mulling over which emoji to use and try and catch up! Oh, and they have Apple Pay and FitBit pay, and Business accounts, etc. I love Monzo but it is a joke when users are so blindly loyal that they think everything is wonderful. The reality is the gap between them and their competitor continues to widen.
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Depends what functions you need in your account. I donât need any of those you listed so to me itâs not an issue. You need them so to you it is 
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these sort of threads just turn into toxic arguments really donât they , same on Starling with âwhat sets Starling apart from Monzoâ
Starling have their Loyal blind customers as do Monzo
Each have inadequacies , be it functions , communication with customers, notifications of limits etc etc
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In oneâŚ
(The old lags amongst us will have played out the Starling v Monzo thing, but new arrivals will understandably express themselves. Good thing is, itâs probably easier these days, to dampen the flames quicker).
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Itâs not that simple - I look at it from an angle of technical choices - more in-house (takes longer, but could have long-term benefits) Vs some outsourcing (faster results, but can be burnt in the future if it goes wrong). Connecting direct with the payment schemes (except Faster Payments, for which Monzo still needs a gateway) vs using someone like Bottomline with an existing integration. Building an in-house card processor vs using GPS. The first of these options usually takes longer (i.e. Apple Pay), but can have future benefits.
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I appreciate what youâre saying and I should have said âminor differences, for meâ.
Youâve correctly pointed out quite a few differences but they donât impact how I use my bank account. Iâve no interest in an overdraft, business account or sending and receiving money from outside of the UK. Am on Android, donât have a smart watch, etc. Iâm not trying to underestimate their importance to you.
The ÂŁ200 per 30 day limit on ATM withdrawals might impact me but itâs not a deal breaker.
I completely agree than blind loyalty to anything be it a bank, football team, political party, romantic partner, etc isnât a good idea.
I look at a service from the viewpoint of the needs I have, the company(s) that can meet my needs and the price they want to charge. At the moment, my main bank account, Starling and Monzo all meet my needs. They all do something a little better and a little worse than each other. My aim is to be down to a single current account provider by the end of the year, it could be any of them.
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Nicely put 
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I think this explanation is very good in respects to your personal needs.
The reason this debate descends into chaos usually is due to the fact people post their opinion as fact, and when newcomers have a look at the conversation, it can look a little skewed.
As you said, you have very few banking needs, and both Starling and Monzo do what you want (as I imagine to many other banks?)
But when comparing the feature set on both, Starling is still considerably ahead.
Although Starling is first to market on a lot of banking features⌠Iâd like to see more of the ânew ageâ type features such as the Monzo coin jar.
At the moment (especially with the development of the legacy banks), it feels a little like we are heading into one big banking empire, where Starling and Monzo could be crowded out.
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I donât agree - Iâve seen Starling users requesting a âCoin Jarâ feature, which our statistics show is something that a huge amount of our customers use.
SEPA payments, by contrast are used by a minority of customers (albeit heavily) plus you can already use Monzo via TransferWise to do this, itâs simply not a native app experience yet.
Swings and roundabouts.
We donât see any kind of meaningful exodus any time another company launches a feature we donât have. Weâd rather spend the time building a feature the right way, and ensuring we maintain our delightful user experience. Thatâs what makes people actually want to use and enjoy using our app - not haphazardly throwing as many features in as fast as possible.
It is perfectly fine to disagree with our approach if it doesnât work for you. It works for us. A laundry list of features with varying amounts of actual usage isnât more important than how using the app makes you feel. And if having a ton of features is what appeals, thatâs fine too! We just donât believe it should come at the cost of an amazing friendly UX.
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