Starling Card?

Trust is the absolute core must have.

Banking/payments etc. are about Tech + Regs.
Tech => nothing is ever up 100% or bug free so I always have a fallback thus donā€™t need to trust
Regs => the same for everyone

Regs makes me feel safe but tech fails sometimes so I donā€™t rely 100% on any 1 supplier. Legacy banking tech being much worse and Revolut having let me down only a couple of times on small things (peanuts compared with value they offer), their transactional offer is top of the list for me at the moment.

I have had starling for over a year. Itā€™s excellent. No forex charges when you withdraw money abroad (and unlike the other challengers - there is no limit for that),

I really like their app and all the features to understand your spending habit.

Oh and their 24hr /7days a week customer chat with real people working in the UK is amazing. I prefer it to calling or going into a Bank. Just for that I think itā€™s worth it compared to any of the other banks!

Oh and I forgot they give you interest! I think I get 0.5% for the first Ā£2k and 0.25% after. I know itā€™s not much but itā€™s better than 0 with HSBC!!

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Foriegn ATM are still subject to the overall daily withdrawal limit of Ā£300. Obviously much higher then competitors but to say no limit is incorrect.

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I have Monzo (daily spending, joint account and a savings pot), Revolut (currency exchange and my travel debit card) and Starling as a backup for my Revolut.

I personally like Monzo and Revolut for what they are, I would never transfer my salary into them, yet.

  • Iā€™m an investor in Monzo however it shows signs of lack of direction and to make money at the expense of client satisfaction. Theyā€™re trying all sort of random stuff atm with Monzo Plus, get your salary paid a day early into your account, etc.

  • Iā€™ve used Revolut religiously for travelling due to one of the best currency exchanges on the market also to transfer money with international people, seamless.

Also, worth noting, out of all british digital bank only Revolut broke even.

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Revolut only broke even during the crypto bubble. Theyā€™re not profitable now.

Thatā€™s not a Plus feature? Itā€™s available to everyone.

Can you expand?

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Based on what? All Iā€™ve heard about is a few sensitive developers crying about work stress. Freetrade continues to trick new comers with their instant buy/sell as default probably despite being one of the most popular change requests for a long time now; but presumably you use FT. Then most major banks will have had some issue at some point

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Of course, you could quite easily find something morally dubious with every company. Itā€™s just about identifying whatā€™s important to you and what you think the intentions are behind the decision-making at the company.

In the case of FreeTrade, I do have faith in the people behind the business. The default nature of instant buy/sell button is a pain, but I donā€™t know enough about it to make a judgement call on why itā€™s that way.

On Revolut, itā€™s not just a matter of ā€˜sensitive developers crying about work stressā€™. First of all, work stress is a serious issue. And itā€™s something that has been brought up several times about Revolut in many departments of the building. I know people first-hand, too, that have applied for jobs there and not continued with the process because of how they were treated during the process and what the work culture was like.

Then thereā€™s the many other negative press articles about Revolut and how theyā€™ve responded to them. This is just one example of many: Revolt at Revolut: how the company tried to silence whistleblowers (and me) | Iona Bain (Young Money)

Iā€™ve met Iona and sheā€™s a decent journalist with the right intentions. Itā€™s not just petty muckraking. I do believe there is a toxic culture at Revolut.

I understand these arenā€™t issues everyone is concerned about. But, for me, when there are plenty of other decent alternatives, I see no reason to go near them.

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So presumably you refuse to use Linux & will never buy a Tesla also. Apple caused many divorces while Jobs was in charge too

I have to say, your argument really only strikes me as whataboutism.

But in answer to it: of course, thereā€™s going to be grey areas when it comes to these kinds of issues, and itā€™s up to the individual to decide what theyā€™re comfortable doing. Every large company is going to have instances of employees being stressed. Itā€™s sad, but itā€™s true. What matters is whether itā€™s a result of the company culture. In the case of Revolut it seems to me that it is an inherent part of the company culture ā€“ trickling down from the very top.

I have no real interest in cars or operating systems so couldnā€™t really say whether Iā€™d use Linux or Tesla or not. But in the case of Apple, I am confident that it is not a core part of their company culture.

Steve Jobs was the cause of the divorces by demanding crazy deadline expectations with the first iPhone and no doubt future releases (The Struggle of Building the Original iPhone - The Untold Story - YouTube). If the Revolut CEO takes blame then same with Apple & Tesla. CEOs drive company culture. Also the child labour sweat factories but then if you discard Apple just for this then you basically canā€™t buy any clothing at all so itā€™s less of an issue

Going back on topic, I hope @BeckyV got her Starling card and enjoys using it on her travels :grin:

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That is simply not true. I would argue it is the other way around. Unsophisticated people tend to use Revolut as they do not understand you are not offered multiple accounts but one account with multiple ā€˜currency walletsā€™. The transactions are also not done at the interbank rate for some currencies and on the weekends (even though TransferWise still offers this).

I think you missed the point. All I did was invert the language of the original list by someone else.

TL;DR @BeckyV

The state of digital banking = Mac vs PC :sweat_smile: :woman_facepalming::

ā€œYou can run MacOS ā€¦ or Windows on a Macā€
ā€œā€¦I can do fun stuff like ā€¦ pie chartsā€

TransferWise doesnā€™t offer the interbank ever. Every single transaction they take a fixed fee and a % fee. With Revolut for most common currencies you can schedule conversions on weekdays & avoid fees

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This is the problem there seems to be a complete lack of understanding around how the interbank rate works. It is an offer rate that exists between two financial instructions. On top of that rate are applied ā€˜feesā€™. TransferWise applies those fees fairly and transparently whilst always offering the interbank rate (and fast transactions). Revolut, meanwhile, often offers a worse rate to customers (up to a 2% markdown on weekends for some currencies) whilst appearing to be fee free which is borderline mis-selling. With normal transfers with Revolut either you wait long enough for them to profit off of the interest or you pay a monthly fee for instant transfers. Either way the fees are there but just not transparent.