Moving to Starling Bank

2006Kuredu

Hi All,

I have banked with Halifax for a number of years, have a Halifax Clarity Card and a Halifax mortgage.

I have been looking to move to Starling Bank as I like the idea I will not be charged for taking cash out overseas and their transfer charges when paying bills in Turkey seem much better than Halifax. I have a home in Turkey so do take cash out and did find the Clarity Card good but more limited as I do not always shop in places that take card.

My question is two fold - Has anyone any experience of switching to Starling and using this as a main account? (Or what are peoples consensus on FinTechs generally) Also, my mortgage rate is up in November 2019 - Will moving banks go against me when seeking to apply for a new mortgage? I have been with Halifax 20+ years

Thanks in advance.

[Deleted User]

It depends if your mortgage rate is preferential on having an account with Halifax in another product - you would need to ask them.


Why would some places in Turkey not take the Clairty card?

eDicky

Why not just open the Starling account without switching? There's no bonus to miss out on. Use each account as you find useful. It's unwise to rely on only one bank account anyway.

2006Kuredu

No there is no discount on my mortgage for being a customer (I don't believe), I was asking more from a moving current account perspective and credit score impact. As for Starling, I liked the idea of the spend graphs they show and the saving pots for ease of understanding where my money is going.

As for Turkey as a home owner I often use small local shops and markets for food etc who certainly dont use card machines

[Deleted User]

Well Starling use the CASS so you're covered by that.

And there's no impact on your credit score as it's not something anyone cares about or sees.

System

Always better to retain at least two current accounts - that doesn't mean that you can't use Starling as your primary one.

With Halifax, you also have access to Halifax / BoS branches in a crunch.

pramsay13

I have both cards and find them extremely useful.
I haven't switched to Starling although I'm considering it as I like getting immediate notifications on spending and a few other things that the card / app can do.
It's definitely worth just opening an account first and testing it out. I'm in Uganda and a few times we tried to withdraw using Starling and it didn't work, so had to use Halifax Clarity.
I still haven't had an explanation why Starling stopped working although it's back up and running again.

2006Kuredu

Keeping two accounts may well be a good idea as you say, thanks for the tip

SlovakianGuy

!!! wrote: »

And there's no impact on your credit score as it's not something anyone cares about or sees.

There may be some little impact, because you are closing your account with several years of history. When you look at your credit report, they even give you the recommendation to "keep at least one of your accounts open for several years.".

By closing a very old account and opening a new one, the average age of all your accounts will drop. BUT this doesn't have a big impact on your credit score. If I'm correct, it makes about 10% of your credit score. It's much less important than your history of payment (no missed or late payments), CCJs, bankrupcies and stuff like that.

That's one of the reasons why I recommend to have multiple bank accounts and credit cards. If you keep them for years, and then close one or two, you still have the others that will keep the average age of all your accounts high.

In OPs case, I would keep the Clarity card and only close the bank account. I think you can have Clarity CC even if you don't have a current account with Halifax, right?

Anyway, you don't need to switch. You can just open Starling bank and still keep Halifax if you want. Switching makes sense if you really don't like your old bank or if you want to get a switch incentive. Starling don't offer an incentive, so no point in switching, IMHO.

Having 2 bank accounts in 2 different banks is only a good thing. If you know what happened to TSB almost a year ago, then you understand why it's always a good idea to have at least one spare account. I have 8 current accounts in 6 banks now, and there's no problem with that. In fact, I send my money in circles between them to meet minimum pay in requirements and earn interest + switch bonuses occasionally.