Which? Guide to Challenger Banks

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

Which? Have just published their overview of the challenger banks.

Aside from saying that Monzo has 200k users, it gives a pretty good summary of Monzo

Challenger and mobile banks - Which?

Edit - I spoke too soon

Also, Revolut is the only bank on this list to offer GPS security, so if someone uses your card to make a payment you’re told where the card is being spent so you can see any discrepancies.

(Monzo & Starling do this or at least, the equivalent too).

[Avishai (Marta)]

It’s worth being aware that if Monzo suspects any fraudulent activity on your card it charges a £30 fee, but may refund this if you’ve been the victim of a genuine fraud.

Whut? :o

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

That is a thing to be fair. It’s currently Monzo’s only (potential) fee & it’s listed in the T’s & C’s here.

[Avishai (Marta)]

Yeah, I know, it’s one of the very few fees and I had seen it before. But what T&C say and what is written in the article is factually off. Fee when customer asks for investigation (that’s cost of investigation), not a fee applied by Monzo when Monzo ‘thinks’ something fraudulent happens.

[billinghamj (James Billingham)]

That fee is not if Monzo suspects fraudulent activity, but if you chargeback a transaction and they decide not to waive the cost.

The only circumstance in which they would decide not to waive the cost is if you inappropriately raised the dispute.

This fee does not (currently) exist for the current account.

[anon31249595]

There is an error regarding the info for Monese.

They claim “You can only make five free withdrawals from ATMs per month (it was previously 10) with a 50p for every withdrawal made thereafter.” but this is rubbish. The current account offering is 10 free withdrawals a month, but was previously five. They got it the wrong way round.

[crablab (Hugh)]

sighs so it looks like Which really isn’t so good at it’s job

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

Yes but actually you’ve just reminded me after I harassed them a bit on Twitter, to their credit, they did update all of the incorrect details in the article, including the point that Marta pointed out

[crablab (Hugh)]

I’ve just started harassing them on Twitter!

[nick69g (Nick)]

Interesting to see Starling pay interest.

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

I know what you mean (I think) but it’s not exactly impressive / significant

Competitor update

Wow so I can earn up to £5 each year, for every £1,000 I desposit - sign me up! Edit - Here’s the link to the article which was linked to the tweet that Ian shared above -

My guess is they’ve done that just to get themselves on the ‘current accounts paying interest’ lists, which seems to be working..

[crablab (Hugh)]

People are obsessed with interest rates - it’s a social engineering trick really because you make people feel like their getting something for nothing…even if that something is only 24p!

[Avishai (Marta)]

@crablab

People are obsessed with interest rates - it’s a social engineering trick really because you make people feel like their getting something for nothing…even if that something is only 24p!

Yeah, and they could put those savings on actual proper interest rates. I know that accessibility to funds is crucial and not all investment plans allow for flexibility, but I actually enjoy it - I can’t make any hasty decisions.

Obviously, investment is always a risk, I’m totally not an expert in this, but I’ve been putting monies into RateSetter and got probably double the interest and no stupid limits like 2% on up to £1,000, then 0.5% on more money. I’m quite happy with it, despite some news about RateSetter problems (and points for them for extra transparency).