Starling as bills account OR spending account?

Legacy_user

Heya, does anyone here use Starling as their main bills/salary account? I’m thinking of making this change. I’ve noticed that quite a few people tend to use it as their bills/salary account as opposed to their spending account for which some use Monzo for (for those who have it). And why for bills instead of for spending , for those who use it this way? I’m stuck, and neee to make a decision soon, the 11th is the day I need to change my salary bank account if deciding to...

flyingowls

Hi,
I've recently switched all my day to day banking from First Direct to Starling (salary goes in and bills and spending all come out).

I looked at the pros and cons of both Monzo and Starling which appear to be the two front runners in app based banking (with a full banking license at least!) and decided to go with Starling (tried Monzo briefly but Starling appears to be a better offering from an innovation perspective and offers other benefits like joint accounts and a small amount of interest on your balance/savings).

I'm only a few weeks in, but Starling has been great - I swapped all my direct debits over and received an alert shortly after confirming they were all fully set up.

My personal view is that having a single account which has your salary paid into and all your bills paid out of is the best way to get a true reflection of your overall spending habits in a single place. As I start to build up a surplus in my Starling account at the end of each month, my plan is to transfer it to my savings accounts which are with Post Office and Santander offering the highest instant access interest rates currently.

Hope this helps!

[Deleted User]

While on holiday I had my card stolen along with my other bank cards. 3 other banks stopped payments due to fraudulent activity. Starling authorised nearly £3300 in fraudulent spending and now is refusing to refund me.

SnowTiger

Sweetcake wrote: »

Heya, does anyone here use Starling as their main bills/salary account? I’m thinking of making this change. I’ve noticed that quite a few people tend to use it as their bills/salary account as opposed to their spending account for which some use Monzo for (for those who have it). And why for bills instead of for spending , for those who use it this way? I’m stuck, and neee to make a decision soon, the 11th is the day I need to change my salary bank account if deciding to...

I would use a credit card for spending.

However, given your options I would use Starling Bank for spending because it offers transaction notifications.

I would (and do) use a Santander 123 Lite account for household bills. Even a one person household would probably make a few pennies profit a month.

J_B

Cgingell81 wrote: »

While on holiday I had my card stolen along with my other bank cards. 3 other banks stopped payments due to fraudulent activity. Starling authorised nearly £3300 in fraudulent spending and now is refusing to refund me.

As discussed here ...


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5866317/starling-bank-security

david39

Startling notify you via your phone app, immediately, each time you use the card.
Victim should have frozen the card via the app as soon as he realised he had lost it or when he received notification of the first fraudulent withdrawal.