Atom bank launched today

notafan

...And managed to do a virgin money by not launching a current account but another product instead... a fixed saver at 2%.

Wish these so called challenger banks would just get on with it...

Virgin has been promising a proper current account for years.
Atom seems to churn out PR but no products
Youandb.co.uk has a site but no details
Metro has a really odd model
Mondo is still prepay MasterCard

Hopefully one will turn up soon that's worth giving a go. Feel like they're loosing their opportunity.

What does everyone think of the atom app? Looks a bit gimmicky - and looks like the 3 mobile app in parts.

pmduk

Virgin has a current account
Atom Bank received its banking licence today

notafan

pmduk wrote: »

Virgin has a current account
Atom Bank received its banking licence today

Virgin has a basic current account it's been promising a full one since it took over NR

Atom got its banking licence last June - it got permision to offer products today

Futuristic

notafan wrote: »

Virgin has a basic current account it's been promising a full one since it took over NR

Atom got its banking licence last June - it got permision to offer products today

Atom also FCSC protected (UK) unlike "Fidor" which is under the EU license which would probably be a head ache to claim against if SHTF. I'd avoid all the gimmicks here though and go with a "proper" established bank.

I can see a lot of fraud and forging going on with no credit checked based "banks" like Fidor.

colsten

Futuristic wrote: »

Atom also FCSC protected (UK) unlike "Fidor" which is under the EU license which would probably be a head ache to claim against if SHTF. I'd avoid all the gimmicks here though and go with a "proper" established bank.

I can see a lot of fraud and forging going on with no credit checked based "banks" like Fidor.

I agree wholeheartedly that an FSCS protection is preferably for any UK citizen.

Just in the same way that is preferable for a french resident to have an account with french protection, spanish resident to have an account with spanish protection, romanian resident to have an account with romanian protection etc etc etc.

There is no such thing as an "EU licence" or any "EU protection" for the depositors although each of the authorised financial institutions in each of the EU member states must be part of the FSCS-equivalent in their country.

If your provider goes bust, you have to file your claim with the compensation scheme the provider is part of, in the country your provider operates in. The compensation scheme has no obligation to speak your language, or to abide by the laws of your country of residence.

As an example, when the icelandic banks went bust in 2008, all non-icelandic account holders were told (in perfect english but they could have legally been told in icelandic) by the icelandic scheme, and by the Icelandic government, to do a fast one. The only reason UK savers got their money back from the icelandic bank failure disaster was that Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, as the then guardians of the UK Treasury, ordered the UK money printing presses to go on, which helped those directly affected, like myself. It took the UK Treasury a lot of tense negotiations and many years to get Iceland to repay the debts to the UK Treasury. It will take UK tax payers even longer to get their money back.

System

Iceland is not part of the EU and ultimately the UK/Dutch governments lost their case against the Icelandic government in the EFTA Court.

Savers shouldn't have been bailed out by the UK government nor by anymore than the 20k limit of the Icelandic scheme anyway.

colsten wrote: »

As an example, when the icelandic banks went bust in 2008, all non-icelandic account holders were told (in perfect english but they could have legally been told in icelandic) by the icelandic scheme, and by the Icelandic government, to do a fast one. The only reason UK savers got their money back from the icelandic bank failure disaster was that Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, as the then guardians of the UK Treasury, ordered the UK money printing presses to go on, which helped those directly affected, like myself. It took the UK Treasury a lot of tense negotiations and many years to get Iceland to repay the debts to the UK Treasury. It will take UK tax payers even longer to get their money back.

Doctor_Duke

Atom say they will have a current account beta sometime this year. It doesn't look that wonderful to me if the app is anything to go by.

antrobus

colsten wrote: »

...The compensation scheme has no obligation to speak your language, ....

Yes, it does actually. It's in Article 8 of directive 2014/49/EU.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014L0049

colsten wrote: »

...It will take UK tax payers even longer to get their money back.

We have already got the money back.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/13/britain-has-been-fully-reimbursed-for-icesave-bank-collapse-iceland-says

colsten

antrobus wrote: »

Yes, it does actually. It's in Article 8 of directive 2014/49/EU.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014L0049

I wasn't aware of that, thank you for the additional information. I wonder how aware RCI, Fidor etc are, as I haven't seen the french or the german guarantee in any languages other than french / german. So how is the depositor even able to read and understand the protection scheme?

eskbanker

colsten wrote: »

I wasn't aware of that, thank you for the additional information. I wonder how aware RCI, Fidor etc are, as I haven't seen the french or the german guarantee in any languages other than french / german. So how is the depositor even able to read and understand the protection scheme?

The French one is available in English at https://www.garantiedesdepots.fr/en/fgdr-guarantees/deposit-guarantee.

colsten

Le site du fgdr est momentan!ment indisponible pour des op!rations de maintenance. But I am invited to reiterate my visit later. Hope the english used in the actual scheme terms is better