Advantages of Holding a Traditional "Mainstream" Bank Over Mobile Current Account Providers

Takmon

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Oh, my sweet summer child.

People have had Monzo and Starling's stamped bank statements rejected by the Home Office before for "not being a real bank" and for not appearing like real statements. And I know what you're about to say; surely the Home Office has a right of appeal for such circumstances for when there's such an obvious instance of idiocy on their side? Surely they should provide a better, more competent service for the thousands that they charge for a limited-time visa? And to that, I repeat:

Oh, my sweet summer child.

I'm not about to chance my partner's right to stay in the country, along with £1k of our own money, just so I can use a slightly nicer app.

You don't need to get rid of your Nationwide account to use a bank like Monzo or Starling. I would also recommend accounts like these in addition to other accounts you already have.

Everyone should have many accounts with many different banks to take advantage of all the switching offers and high interest savings accounts. It's never a good idea to switch a long standing account simply because it's good to have these accounts on your credit file.

JuicyJesus

Takmon wrote: »

You don't need to get rid of your Nationwide account to use a bank like Monzo or Starling. I would also recommend accounts like these in addition to other accounts you already have.

I have an account with Monzo alongside my Nationwide one that I don't use. I like the Monzo app, but not enough to justify spending on the Monzo card when my American Express card gives me 1% cashback, and my Barclaycard Cashback gives me 0.5%, while the Monzo card gives me a grand total of nil. And if I can't get cashback from it, and I can't get statements from it that I can reliably give to the Home Office so my fiancee doesn't get deported, what's the point?

It's a nice idea, and well-implemented, it just doesn't work for my purposes. As soon as Nationwide ceases to work for my purposes, I'll switch from them too.

penners324

There is zero evidence of the 'home office' rejecting a bank statement from monzo or starling.

They are real banks.

JuicyJesus

penners324 wrote: »

There is zero evidence of the 'home office' rejecting a bank statement from monzo or starling.

They are real banks.

Anecdotally, I have heard of the Home Office (not sure why you put that in quotes, that's who we're talking about) rejecting Monzo and Starling statements because they do not consider them to be valid.

They are indeed valid, and they are indeed real banks. And you can argue that until you're blue in the face. It doesn't mean that I'm willing to possibly waste thousands of pounds on both non-refundable application fees and appeal fees (yes, appeal fees, even in cases of mistake of fact) for the sake of banking with either of them, when I could have an account with proper monthly postal statements from a financial institution everyone recognises.

K80_Black

Many brick and mortar banks give rewards of a few quid a month for being in credit, paying in X amount, direct debits etc - so I collect those, leave very little money in there, and transfer the rest to starling for a small amount of interest and fee free overseas use. Best of both worlds.

System

Takmon wrote: »

I uses Monzo among others and I've never had a transactions declined for no reason.

If you used the card at ASDA pay at pump and it just gave you back the card without any notification on the app of an issue then that is a fault with ASDA and not Monzo.

Well, none of my other cards was rejected at any Pay at Pump.
You can say ASDA is at fault but if every other card works...

IMO it's fine as a backup account but not as a main bank account.

d123

Takmon wrote: »

I uses Monzo among others and I've never had a transactions declined for no reason.

If you used the card at ASDA pay at pump and it just gave you back the card without any notification on the app of an issue then that is a fault with ASDA and not Monzo.

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Well, none of my other cards was rejected at any Pay at Pump.
You can say ASDA is at fault but if every other card works...

IMO it's fine as a backup account but not as a main bank account.

There was an issue specifically with Monzo being refused by Asda Pay@Pump possibly due to higher than average fraud from Monzo cards.



The problem was resolved by Monzo and shouldn’t be happening anymore.

https://www.reddit.com/r/monzo/comments/b126ir/monzo_not_accepted_at_asda_petrol_station/

https://community.fintechtalk.co.uk/t/problems-with-asda/1082/83

JuicyJesus

d123 wrote: »

There was an issue specifically with Monzo being refused by Asda Pay@Pump possibly due to higher than average fraud from Monzo cards.

I mean, what do people expect when they do basically no ID&VA or credit checks on opening an account. Everyone talks about how its unconscionable that banks ask for documentary evidence etc but ultimately banks do ask for these things for a reason, and part of that reason is because it dissuades fraudsters from committing first party fraud. If you reduce the documentary and credit requirements for your bank so that basically anybody can satisfy them, then fraudsters will consider your bank to be a good vector for fraud.

It's quite funny, in one of the threads you linked, them talking about how it's unfair that Monzo gets flak on social media from scammers who just want their accounts unblocked so they can keep on defrauding people. But the unpalatable fact (for them) is that if Monzo worked differently they wouldn't have this issue on anywhere near the scale that they do.

Much like Bitcoin being an exercise in libertarians discovering why financial regulations exist piece by piece, Monzo (and to a certain extent other "challenger" banks such as Metro) seems to be an exercise in people discovering why "legacy" banks function the way they do piece by piece, rule by rule.

Ashen

Yellow_mango wrote: »

Yes I can do it with my Barclays app too. Very handy for the small random grandparent gifts. I assume it will be introduced by Starling etc in time.

Still not sure how comfortable I would be using it (or whether it would be accepted) if the cheque was for a large amount of money.

For large cheques, I've needed to go into branch. Barclays specifically need you to go into branch for cheques over £500, and I imagine many (all?) banks are similar. I can't imagine I'd be that comfortable posting off a large cheque in the post, if that was needed for a bank without branches.

anotheruser

Gregory402 wrote: »

They operate like any other current account but without the hefty charges that traditional banks have.

Yet they don't seem to offer market busting interest rates with all the money they're saving...

Low interest rates is why I'm locked in with TSB.
I can give up that 3% interest and get half that, but there isn't much incentive to do so.