Starling Bank opinions...

Toe-Jam

penners324 wrote: »

About 99.99% of negative reviews on trustpilot and elsewhere are from money launderers. So Starling bank have rightly frozen their accounts.
.

What have you based that statement on exactly ?

bd10

I have been using Starling as my secondary account for 4-5 months now and am very pleased.

I tried to make a SWIFT payment and the impression I got is that this is not fully developed yet. SWIFT payments abroad, say US are never that straight forward. Back in the days, I remember the paper form that I had to fill out. Also, today when I did succeed to make the payment from my primary bank, the paper form got translated to an online form but the fields were all there.

Now Starling offers SWIFT as payment functionality but that is not complete (yet). Horse fell on the first fence when there was no field that would accept the SWIFT code. There were fields but it was ambiguous which field was for the SWIFT code and none of the fields accepted a combination of numbers and characters. Big problem. When I rang Starling's customer service line, their team is too much trained on helping customers where to fill in what number rather than understanding the business process. That was very frustrating.

To be fair, a SWIFT payment with special instructions is not the typical transaction, esp. for a mobile only bank. So I won't hold it against Starling that it did not work. I left the feedback however that they should be careful how they market their payment functionalities. Advertising that SWIFT is available but it not fully implemented, that's dangerous and a massive pain if payments fail or get lost. However, I do hope that they will get this fully implemented.

Edi81

Used starling all over the world - Europe, USA, Canada, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Mexico with no problems.

Great bank - I find their app has better functionality than my lloyds account for finding historic transactions.

Would recommend in a flash n

System

bd10 wrote: »

I have been using Starling as my secondary account for 4-5 months now and am very pleased.

I tried to make a SWIFT payment and the impression I got is that this is not fully developed yet. SWIFT payments abroad, say US are never that straight forward. Back in the days, I remember the paper form that I had to fill out. Also, today when I did succeed to make the payment from my primary bank, the paper form got translated to an online form but the fields were all there.

Now Starling offers SWIFT as payment functionality but that is not complete (yet). Horse fell on the first fence when there was no field that would accept the SWIFT code. There were fields but it was ambiguous which field was for the SWIFT code and none of the fields accepted a combination of numbers and characters. Big problem. When I rang Starling's customer service line, their team is too much trained on helping customers where to fill in what number rather than understanding the business process. That was very frustrating.

To be fair, a SWIFT payment with special instructions is not the typical transaction, esp. for a mobile only bank. So I won't hold it against Starling that it did not work. I left the feedback however that they should be careful how they market their payment functionalities. Advertising that SWIFT is available but it not fully implemented, that's dangerous and a massive pain if payments fail or get lost. However, I do hope that they will get this fully implemented.

They have access to the domestic ACH network in the US.

This is actually better than SWIFT as the recipients aren't charged - but you usually need their domestic ACH routing number rather than the SWIFT / International one.

bd10

Interesting! I did not know that. Would this work in this scenario I faced: I had to make the payment to my brokerage account. The funds are received in an segregated clients account which then gets allocated accordingly. I looked at the app and just could not figure out how to correctly fill it in. When I did the SWIFT payment, the form a whole page with all the details I remember back when paper was still being used.
Starling support said they (think) that this functionality does not exist at the moment. Anyways, bit of a loss/disappointment.

londoninvestor

bd10 wrote: »

Interesting! I did not know that. Would this work in this scenario I faced: I had to make the payment to my brokerage account. The funds are received in an segregated clients account which then gets allocated accordingly. I looked at the app and just could not figure out how to correctly fill it in. When I did the SWIFT payment, the form a whole page with all the details I remember back when paper was still being used.
Starling support said they (think) that this functionality does not exist at the moment. Anyways, bit of a loss/disappointment.

Ask your brokerage how to send them money by ACH. If it's a US brokerage, that will almost certainly be easy for them as it's what their US domestic customers will use.

[Deleted User]

Been using Starling as my main current account for nearly 2 years and never had a problem yet. Used it with no problems in the ROI last year too.

SidT

Just applied to Starling for a business account and was turned down, apparently randomly - Starling refused to give any reason for this  (instead referring me to their  generic T&Cs). I am a homeowner (no mortgage), an additional (45%) rate taxpayer and meet the definition for a high net worth individual for non-property assets. Perhaps Starling have over extended - either way I am appalled by this level of service and arrogance and am not used to being treated so contemptuously by what purports to be a serious financial institution.  
Perhaps they chose the name Starling because they like to deposit nasty stuff randomly on people's heads from a great height. If this is the future of  banking the we are all in serious trouble . Steer well clear to avoid damage to your reputation and credit rating!

qwert10

me tSidT said:

Just applied to Starling for a business account and was turned down, apparently randomly - Starling refused to give any reason for this  (instead referring me to their  generic T&Cs)
me too turned down for current account after all sorts of checks and the clerk was downright rude on the phone. Worse than Lloyds if that is possible. Maybe copying there customer service style? Brutal! Also totally refused to discuss why so I went online to Nat West and opened an account in minutes!

colsten

SidT said:

Just applied to Starling for a business account and was turned down, apparently randomly - Starling refused to give any reason for this  (instead referring me to their  generic T&Cs). I am a homeowner (no mortgage), an additional (45%) rate taxpayer and meet the definition for a high net worth individual for non-property assets. Perhaps Starling have over extended - either way I am appalled by this level of service and arrogance and am not used to being treated so contemptuously by what purports to be a serious financial institution.  
Perhaps they chose the name Starling because they like to deposit nasty stuff randomly on people's heads from a great height. If this is the future of  banking the we are all in serious trouble . Steer well clear to avoid damage to your reputation and credit rating!

As a high net worth individual and HR tax payer, you are no doubt aware that any business is as free as you are to choose who  to do business with, without justifying the decision. For some reason, Starling don't want to do business with you. 

Your reputation is not affected if your application for an account gets rejected, as the result of the application is between you and the financial institution only. You also don't need to worry about your credit record as an application for a credit account makes only a marginal, temporary, difference to your credit worthiness.

Starling have over 2m customers now (don't know how many of them are business customers) - they have not acquired them by "depositing nasty stuff randomly on people's heads from a great height". I could understand, though, if they weren't interested in customers who make such suggestions.