Starling Card?

[engineer]

@hrochfor1

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.

The product might be not as good as TransferWise’s, which is a different business model, but Rev does explain the weekend FX rates in their blog post called Understanding the interbank exchange rate:

When does Revolut apply the interbank exchange rate?

Currency markets operate on a 24/5 basis, meaning they’re closed at the weekend. Revolut allows you to exchange currencies at the interbank rate Monday-Friday. Exchange at the weekend, and we charge a small markup fee. This is to cover ourselves against any changes in the currency market over the weekend, when it’s closed.

And here (What FX rate will I get):

On the weekend (Sat-Sun London time) the provided rates are fixed to protect against fluctuations, this means there are markups of:

• +0.5% to all major currencies (ie. USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, CAD, NZD, CHF, JPY, ISK, SEK, HKD, NOK, SGD, DKK, PLN, and CZK); and
• +1% to all other currencies including THB and UAH. (this means over the weekend THB and UAH have a 2% markup.)

Since the interbank exchange rate is constantly fluctuating, the rates locked in for the weekend may not be the same as the rates that are available when the markets open on Monday morning.

[hrochfor1]

Yes I know they explain it but they are just profiting needlessly. The interbank rate for the weekend is set at ‘The Fix’ from the Friday London market auctions. Revolut decide not to charge this fairer rate and instead lower the rate - rather than charge a fee. Therefore they do not offer the interbank rate.

[weenie]

Meanwhile, over at Starling:

The Media Leader -

[engineer]

Maybe @Freetrade_Team can move our recent comments somewhere else - e.g. to https://community.freetrade.io/t/winner-takes-most-monzo-revolut-starling-atom-tandem-n26/13013?u=engineer - we may be getting a bit off-topic.

@weenie

https://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2019/11/13/monzo-competitor-starling-looks-to-tv-and-ooh-for-future-growth

In addition to “banner” ads around Europe and the US, Starling’s move to do TV ads (?) is probably affecting operating expenses quite a bit:

… the launch of the bank’s first TV advertising campaign last month…
…
‘Feel Good About Money’ launched across Channel 4 and ITV and focused on Starling’s promise to help people to feel in control of their finances.

Perhaps they are targeting the demographic who are still watching TV.

I’m not a marketing person and don’t know how to create brand awareness. But I understand that the millennial and Gen Z’s attention is on the web, so I’d focus on YouTube (Grammarly ads are in my head ), Google search, Snapchat, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter etc.

Traditional TV is a zombie business imho.

[anon810895]

@engineer

Traditional TV is a zombie business imho.

Monzo spoke about this exact thing earlier in the month. They said there were lots of people that didn’t believe in the long term sustainability of Monzo that were swayed by the TV ads. The narrative they put forward is that these people were well aware of Monzo and it’s features, but it took seeing them on TV (an indication that they are now large enough and secure enough financially to do so) to make them take the plunge.

[engineer]

Interesting Perhaps they are indeed targeting a different demographic with TV ads.

@anon810895

but it took seeing them on TV (an indication that they are now large enough and secure enough financially to do so) to make them take the plunge.

Also, wondering how they know this, since people can tick any boxes during an on-boarding questionnaire (“Do as I do, not what I say”).

They may also create any story to justify TV ad spending, since they have large shareholders now. VCs who gave them money to grow are the school principals and they are the pupils. The key word is “growth”, since that’s what VCs want to see. And any data can be interpreted in N different ways, as correlation is not causation.

The online-only banking market is both young and getting increasingly saturated.

And the winners are users.

[ukcz]

Transfers to the UK via Revolut are done with FPS even with the free accounts. Instantly in the account

[hrochfor1]

Sure but when I change GBP into AUD and then send the AUD to an Australian bank account it can take up to two weeks. All I am trying to demonstrate is at least TransferWise is transparent and doesn’t push the law to within breaking point.

[the_czar]

@anon810895

That’s not a Plus feature? It’s available to everyone.

Getting paid a day early is indeed a free feature if you ported with Monzo. However they tried and tested Monzo Plus which didn’t go down that well, twice. More information on testimonials here:

Monzo Plus - what would you like to see?

Monzo Plus - here's what's coming next!

@anon810895

Can you expand?

As mentioned above, they show small signs in how they wish to expand commercially by offering other products. Which is normal, like any other bank by trying to provide insurance, new increased limits to ATM withdrawals outside of the UK, etc.

However I don’t know how they do their market research as they haven’t seem to get it right lately, hopefully they find the right products to offer their customers.

[Eden]

@engineer

Perhaps they are targeting the demographic who are still watching TV.

I’m not a marketing person and don’t know how to create brand awareness. But I understand that the millennial and Gen Z’s attention is on the web, so I’d focus on YouTube (Grammarly ads are in my head ), Google search, Snapchat, Instagram , Tiktok, Twitter etc.

Traditional TV is a zombie business imho

The starling ad is also on YouTube (at least) and they have social media specific cuts as well on places like twitter and Instagram.

As well as that it’s work considering the reality of tv. You can look at monzo for some unscientific data. I think last I looked last week, 70% of these millennials and gen z people have a tv license.