Anyone tried Starling Bank?

WillyWonga

Never looked back since joining Starling. Set up account in minutes and offered automatic £1000 o/d.

Card payments registered straight away - no pending balances you try and work out what you have spent. Everything is there in front of you.

Payments in (like salary) are credited just after midnight. Whereas my old bank took till 5am to credit.

Used the new option to pay in via Post Office. Got immediate message to say payment accepted and funds available to use straight away.

Interest on credit balances and can set aside different savings goals.

If you only shop in physical stores you can adjust card settings to not allow internet payments (to stop any potential fraud) and block gambling site payments etc etc.

trakhat

I have been using Starling for several months without a hitch. Love the almost instant alert on my mobile - often quicker than the EPOS printer has done it..!
Just back from Australia and Hong Kong. Seamless. Could just as easily have been in London as in the Bush. I paid evertime in local currency I got a much better rate than if I had paid in £££. I checked this in a 'Coles' store in Perth and on a $30 transaction saved about £1 by paying in A$.

Love it. It's quick, efficient, reliable and having only spoken to customer services once I got an intelligent operator who knew what he was talking about and resolved my query very quickly.
I don't have an overdraft facility.
I use it as a pre-pay card and now top-up £1000 a time which appears almost instantaneously from my UK current a/c.
Great 5*****

Anthorn

Deleted_User wrote: »

Systems go down get over it. At the end of the day it is a rack of servers in a data centre and there are any number of reasons why the service could go down, many outside of Starling's reach unless they owned the whole data centre, all the equipment and the uplink to the internet.

The best way to cover yourself is to have a backup account preferentially with another card network (visa) in case the other goes offline.

But what if the back-up account also goes down? In that case I'll need to back-up the back-up account. But what if the back-up back-up goes down? In that case I'll need a back-up for the back-up back-up. Then so on through main account, back-up, back-up for the back-up, back-up for the back-up back-up back-up, and so on. Now I know why some people report having over 20 accounts ROFL.

[Deleted User]

Anthorn wrote: »

But what if the back-up account also goes down? In that case I'll need to back-up the back-up account. But what if the back-up back-up goes down? In that case I'll need a back-up for the back-up back-up. Then so on through main account, back-up, back-up for the back-up, back-up for the back-up back-up back-up, and so on. Now I know why some people report having over 20 accounts ROFL.

You're so funny.

d123

Deleted_User wrote: »

You're so funny.

[Deleted User]

It will be a very good coincidence if two separate banks on two separate payment networks go down at the same time. If that were to happen then every bank will be down and I'm sure we will have bigger problems then worrying about how you will pay for that sandwich meal deal.

Do you have two phone lines and two broadband accounts in case one goes down? Oh no the two phone line go to the same exchange so you'll need a virgin media line too just in case, and maybe a second one. Do you have a spare kettle too?

Butch_Dingle

trakhat wrote: »

Just back from Australia and Hong Kong. Seamless.
Great 5*****

Yet when i used my Starling debit card in New Zealand last year, it hardly worked in any ATM - despite no such issues with my other UK issued mastercards.

I only use Starling as my backup account and also to receive payments from my Fineco account as its one of the few UK banks/BS which don't levy charges for incoming SWIFT GBP payments - the other is Nationwide.

jonnygee2

Yet when i used my Starling debit card in New Zealand last year, it hardly worked in any ATM - despite no such issues with my other UK issued mastercards.

It's quite common for the bank cards of newer banks not to work in ATMs abroad. The problem is in some countries ATMs filter for 'recognised' BINs (the first six digits of your card number, which tells merchants which banks you are using). Obviously Starlings BIN will be registered with Mastercard but some ATMs will still not be updated to accept it.

That's one reason I'd always take at least one 'older' bank card with me abroad as a back up.

[Deleted User]

Both Starling and Monzo worked fine in Ireland (Republic of) the other month. Just as well as they were the only 2 cards I took with me.

d123

Deleted_User wrote: »

Both Starling and Monzo worked fine in Ireland (Republic of) the other month. Just as well as they were the only 2 cards I took with me.

You’re brave. No credit card?