My comparison of banking apps (Monzo, Starling, Lloyds, Natwest and others)

Martico

I like the Barclays app, it's clean and easy, and shows spending by type in an intuitive way. Though I don't now spend with it. I use the account as my "main" account for money coming in, for the rainy day saver and for most DDs, but farm out spending money to Chase every month for day-to-day spending (for the 1% cashback). I transferred a couple of DDs to Nationwide (via a burner account) for a switch, and am debating whether to start using that more. I probably won't

eskbanker

Rob5342 said:

this is useful to see as the app functionality is now the most important thing to consider when choosing a bank.

Massive generalisation alert!

Rob5342

Also, Monzo and Starling do not make a distinction between pending and non-pending transactions.

I don't understand why some banks do. If I've spent some money all I care about it being able to open the app to see how much I have left so I can decide on any future spending. I don't care about the technicalities of the banking system and which stage a payment is at.

k_man

Rob5342 said:

Also, Monzo and Starling do not make a distinction between pending and non-pending transactions.

I don't understand why some banks do. If I've spent some money all I care about it being able to open the app to see how much I have left so I can decide on any future spending. I don't care about the technicalities of the banking system and which stage a payment is at.

Pending transactions can be cancelled without actually being paid.
You can then choose to make judgement if the pending transaction will, or will not impact your balance.

Also, if interest is paid on the balance, then pending vs actual transaction date is significant.

SouthLondonUser

@k_man but how often does that happen (I can't remember many cases TBH) and how different is it from just reversing an existing transaction?
My point is that, if you have to challenge a transaction, challenging a pending one is not any easier; in all likelihood, it will become settled (or whatever the right word is) before your complaint can be investigated.
If I am not going to challenge it I'd rather see it reflected in the balance immediately, because the odds the vendor will cancel it or amend the amount are pretty low.

Anyway, it's not a huge deal

k_man

SouthLondonUser said:

@k_man but how often does that happen (I can't remember many cases TBH) and how different is it from just reversing an existing transaction?
My point is that, if you have to challenge a transaction, challenging a pending one is not any easier; in all likelihood, it will become settled (or whatever the right word is) before your complaint can be investigated.
If I am not going to challenge it I'd rather see it reflected in the balance immediately, because the odds the vendor will cancel it or amend the amount are pretty low.

Anyway, it's not a huge deal

I didn't mean easier to cancel/dispute by you, but can be cancelled/not completed by the merchant.
E.g. pre authorisation payments (sometimes £100 for petrol), or card payments that fail to complete.
These can stay pending for a while. If you know they are pending, but will be cancelled, you can decide if you need to do something with your balance.

If these are indistinguishable from full transactions, you can't make an informed decision.

Band7

eskbanker said:

Rob5342 said:

this is useful to see as the app functionality is now the most important thing to consider when choosing a bank.

Massive generalisation alert!

I agree. Apps for current accounts and credit cards are now the norm, nothing more than a commodity. All of them do the basics. There are many other factors - monthly fees, cashback, rewards, switch bonuses, interest on current and other accounts, premium accounts with insurances, loans/mortgages if I need them, FSCS cover, quality and accessibility of CS, and general reliability would be some or all of the other factors I would consider. I might even consider their investment offerings although it is usually better to chose a specialist investment platform.

I would also never rely on one bank only as I don't want to be stranded without access to money in case something goes wrong - which can happen with any bank. So even if there were a bank which had the most super-duper app in the world, I'd still not use them exclusively.

Rob5342

They might all have an app of some sort but there is a vast difference in the functionality. Starling and Monzo have lots of budgeting features that I'd now class as essential, but Nationwide don't even let you set up a new payee (they seem to have done the minimum possible to say they have an app with taking any sort of interest in making it useful)

Most accounts don't charge fees or pay interest, so I still say the app is the most important as it's something you'll be using multiple times a day.

Monzo is my main account but I have three others too.

SouthLondonUser

@k_man I see, much clearer now, thanks. TBH for what is my usage I prefer not to see a distinction between pending and not pending, but I see your point and I understand that for other people it may well be different.

@band7 Every regulated bank has FSCS cover! If it doesn't, it's not a regulated bank (eg Revolut in the UK) but that has nothing to do with the app itself.

Also, every app does the basics but some people aren't happy with just the basics. Very simple tasks like checking how much you spent on groceries this month vs the previous one, and checking if a transaction was classified in the correct category, are very straightforward with Monzo and Starling, clunky with other apps (unless you use a budgeting app like MoneyDashboard or MoneyHub) and outright impossible with other apps.

For me these things are important, but I totally get it that for many people they aren't - otherwise Monzo and Starling would have more users than HSBC etc, or the traditional banks would have caught up, instead none of that has happened.

SouthLondonUser

I have just found out that Lloyds has a thing called "money manager". It is not available in the Android app (no idea about iphones) https://www.lloydsbank.com/online-banking/benefits-online-banking/money-manager.html but only from their website.

If you access the bank account or the credit card you do not get an option to classify transaction.

But if you click on money manager at the bottom left, you get to a section which combines transactions from both debit and credit card, and from where you can see each transaction chronologically (with the option to change categories), summary by time and categories, etc. Not as advanced as MoneyHub but it's decent, and if all your expenses are on the LLoyds debit and credit card, it will give you a complete picture without the need for an external hub. BTW, neither MoneyHub nor Money Dashboard can connect to Lloyds accounts at this very moment, some technical fault.

All you can see in the Lloyds android app is some very basic summary (spending insights), for your bank account only (not credit card) which shows just money in, debit card transactions, direct debits, but not categories like groceries.

The Natwest app has the useless summary I mentioned earlier; nothing at all in terms of categories or spending insights from their website.

I wish it were all better documented and not so confusing!!! Understanding all of this is way more complicated than it should be.