Starling or First Direct

stuartp2000

TheElectricCow said:

Band7 said:

stuartp2000 said:

I joined FD in January and good for customer services they say but the chat on the app is poor it’s asks you 20 questions then tells you to phone in.

The app is dreadful, looks like it was written by a 5 year old. 

I moved for the 7% saver and if it was not for that improbably would leave already.

That said I looked at Starling as well and whilst meant to be a good app it does have very poor interest rates even on savings pots / accounts

There is, of course, no reason why you would have to use the FD current account for anything other than feeding their Regular Saver, and for getting your Regular Saver money out of FD upon maturity

That’s very true, but personally I found even that to be a rather poor experience in the FD app. Not sure if it has since changed, but I recall them only allowing money into a regular saver to be paid by setting up a standing order rather than a simple button to transfer between accounts like the majority of other banks, and it wouldn’t even save the account details for the next time so they’d have to be manually input.

Of course this isn’t an issue if you do things “properly” and leave the SO in place between months and amend it each time you want a different amount, but I find that’s besides the point when the bank falls short on the basics. 

Functionally, FD is probably the worst bank I’ve ever been with, certainly couldn’t see myself using them for everyday banking. Their rates are very attractive though (plus they’ve been known to have some competitive switching offers), so as suggested the only reason I’d consider keeping an account with them would be to access the regular saver.

It’s still the case you can’t change the SO amount, you have to ring them and next month you amend again.
In principle sounds easy as when join it says can change the amount and next month top up to the cumulative but alas the chat was a robot and just kept giving an error code.
You can’t as you say even top up via a normal account payment, funny way to run things 

pridehappy

Personally, I wouldn’t choose any of these and I’m not sure why they get so high ratings although if I had to choose, I’d say Starling.

Free foreign transfers is useful and at least I’ve heard cards are reliable, and are much more ethical than first direct, who is part of HSBC.

Their product offer is still poor though and not a fan of a no branch bank.

datz

Deleted_User said:

If you had one of each account from these providers, and could only keep one, which would it be and why?

I would keep both, but I am a bank account hoarder.

averageguy11

Ive used Starling for the last two years….having a personal and business account …easy to use App…customers service’s excellent on the very few occasions I’ve had to use them..no hesitation in recommending them.

penners324

pridehappy said:

Personally, I wouldn’t choose any of these and I’m not sure why they get so high ratings although if I had to choose, I’d say Starling.

Free foreign transfers is useful and at least I’ve heard cards are reliable, and are much more ethical than first direct, who is part of HSBC.

Their product offer is still poor though and not a fan of a no branch bank.

Where does Starling fall short as a current account compared to any other bank?

Rob5342

There are loads of banks around so you can just take your pick from any of them. I'd always choose a modern bank with a good app for my day to day spending, Starling or Monzo are the only contenders really. For savings I'd look mainly at interest rates and wouldn't mind an old fashioned bank as long as it had some sort of app.

Rich1976

We are with First Direct and have been for over 10 years without any issues.
we did consider Starling a while back but they don’t do joint accounts unless each account holder already has their own accounts so we didn’t bother

Rob5342

Rich1976 said:

We are with First Direct and have been for over 10 years without any issues.
we did consider Starling a while back but they don’t do joint accounts unless each account holder already has their own accounts so we didn’t bother

Monzo are the same, we have individual accounts but dont use them, it's not a problem.

Band7

Rich1976 said:

We are with First Direct and have been for over 10 years without any issues.
we did consider Starling a while back but they don’t do joint accounts unless each account holder already has their own accounts so we didn’t bother

That each Starling joint account holder needs a sole account as a pre-req is merely a different formality for the ID verification and CRA checks which are carried out for all joint applications by all banks. 

Neither of the joint account holders is forced to use the Starling sole account but they could do so if they wanted to. This may or may not worry either or both of the joint account holders but I would consider it a positive advantage.

Rich1976

Band7 said:

Rich1976 said:

We are with First Direct and have been for over 10 years without any issues.
we did consider Starling a while back but they don’t do joint accounts unless each account holder already has their own accounts so we didn’t bother

That each Starling joint account holder needs a sole account as a pre-req is merely a different formality for the ID verification and CRA checks which are carried out for all joint applications by all banks. 

Neither of the joint account holders is forced to use the Starling sole account but they could do so if they wanted to. This may or may not worry either or both of the joint account holders but I would consider it a positive advantage.

We don’t hold individual accounts so seems a waste they enforce that rule if individual accounts are not going to be used