Worst Banking App in your opinion?

friolento

Rob5342 said:

Lightning360 said:

penners324 said:

Most of the legacy banks have pretty woeful apps.

How? Most have massively improved in recent years and they  essentially all have the same features as the mobile only banks now.

They might have some of the same headline features but the implementation can be a lot worse. Halifax for example have transaction notifications but they can a very long time to show up, over an hour in some cases. Monzo and Starling are immediate. It only seems to be Monzo and Starling that have pots which are invaluable for budgeting, I don't think any of the old fashioned banks have those.

Nationwide's is so bad it's laughable. 

I would never use a banking app for budgeting as this locks me into that bank and I don’t want to be locked in. Also, my budgeting extends way beyond what Monzo, Starling etc provide - I need all my savings and investment accounts visible, too. Independent personal finance software is the only sensible option for me. I appreciate other people have different requirements.

TheBanker

friolento said:

Rob5342 said:

Lightning360 said:

penners324 said:

Most of the legacy banks have pretty woeful apps.

How? Most have massively improved in recent years and they  essentially all have the same features as the mobile only banks now.

They might have some of the same headline features but the implementation can be a lot worse. Halifax for example have transaction notifications but they can a very long time to show up, over an hour in some cases. Monzo and Starling are immediate. It only seems to be Monzo and Starling that have pots which are invaluable for budgeting, I don't think any of the old fashioned banks have those.

Nationwide's is so bad it's laughable. 

I would never use a banking app for budgeting as this locks me into that bank and I don’t want to be locked in. Also, my budgeting extends way beyond what Monzo, Starling etc provide - I need all my savings and investment accounts visible, too. Independent personal finance software is the only sensible option for me. I appreciate other people have different requirements.

I agree with you - and I have multiple accounts and don't rely on any single bank app to manage them all.

But, I've known people who can only properly budget by using savings 'pots'. These could be 'pots' as offered by some of the apps, or multiple instand access savings accounts with the same bank. They find it easier to have an account for saving for car insurance/servicing, a different account for holidays, one for general savings etc. They are no doubt missing out on interest doing it this way, but if that also means they're avoiding borrowing to meet these costs it's not a bad outcome.

My mum used to manage the family budgets in a similar way, except she used envelopes of cash hidden in her knicker drawer!

EarthBoy

jameseonline said:

EarthBoy said:

Rob5342 said:

It only seems to be Monzo and Starling that have pots which are invaluable for budgeting, I don't think any of the old fashioned banks have those.

Both TSB and Virgin have pots. Personally, I can't see how pots are any different to easy access savings accounts. Most banks will let you have several savings accounts which you can use for different things. 

Pots don't require having several separate account numbers and sort codes.

How does it matter whether they have separate account numbers and sort codes or not?  In fact, that's an advantage if you want to pay into them direct from another bank.

EarthBoy

Rob5342 said:

EarthBoy said:

Rob5342 said:

It only seems to be Monzo and Starling that have pots which are invaluable for budgeting, I don't think any of the old fashioned banks have those.

Both TSB and Virgin have pots. Personally, I can't see how pots are any different to easy access savings accounts. Most banks will let you have several savings accounts which you can use for different things. 

Monzo's pots are much more flexible than having separate accounts. You can set direct debits and standing orders to come out of a particular pot, I have all my bills set to come out of my bills pot so when I get paid I put enough in the bills pot to cover all the bills so the money is kept separate. 

A bills pot is the same as having a separate current account for your bills, which some of us have been doing for donkeys years; long before Monzo.  

Rob5342

EarthBoy said:

Rob5342 said:

EarthBoy said:

Rob5342 said:

It only seems to be Monzo and Starling that have pots which are invaluable for budgeting, I don't think any of the old fashioned banks have those.

Both TSB and Virgin have pots. Personally, I can't see how pots are any different to easy access savings accounts. Most banks will let you have several savings accounts which you can use for different things. 

Monzo's pots are much more flexible than having separate accounts. You can set direct debits and standing orders to come out of a particular pot, I have all my bills set to come out of my bills pot so when I get paid I put enough in the bills pot to cover all the bills so the money is kept separate. 

A bills pot is the same as having a separate current account for your bills, which some of us have been doing for donkeys years; long before Monzo.  

That's what I used to do too, I find it much easier to use pots though as it's all in one place so I switched to Monzo. I have pots for each weeks spending money, PayPal payments, bills each child's pocket money and create them on the fly if I have a day outt I want to put money aside for. I find it much easier than having 8 current accounts. 

Rob5342

friolento said:

Rob5342 said:

Lightning360 said:

penners324 said:

Most of the legacy banks have pretty woeful apps.

How? Most have massively improved in recent years and they  essentially all have the same features as the mobile only banks now.

They might have some of the same headline features but the implementation can be a lot worse. Halifax for example have transaction notifications but they can a very long time to show up, over an hour in some cases. Monzo and Starling are immediate. It only seems to be Monzo and Starling that have pots which are invaluable for budgeting, I don't think any of the old fashioned banks have those.

Nationwide's is so bad it's laughable. 

I would never use a banking app for budgeting as this locks me into that bank and I don’t want to be locked in. Also, my budgeting extends way beyond what Monzo, Starling etc provide - I need all my savings and investment accounts visible, too. Independent personal finance software is the only sensible option for me. I appreciate other people have different requirements.

I'm not really locked into Monzo. I have a spreadsheet I plan my months spend with and I use the Monzo pots for managing it day to day. I could easily change to doing it with Starling spaces instead.

I'd have thought a lot of people would make use of pots and I find it strange that most of the old fashioned banks don't have them. They can just be ignored if you don't want to use them. 

steven141

I have never used pots and never really understood them. I thought they were savings accounts. I use multiple bank accounts and savings accounts for different purposes. It’s interesting to know that they split up your money. Do you have to turn them on in the app or something before using them? I think I had them with TSB before and it said something about taking money out of your pots if you were likely to be overdrawn I remember seeing the feature but never understood it fully. 

Digital_Payback

I like Starling and am generally very happy with the Starling App, but I don’t quite get the need for the circles showing total spend and today’s spend. 

I don't find that info particularly useful, and it takes up so much space at app launch. 

I never open the app to find THAT information. 

Maybe it’s just me, or am I really missing something?

username

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Virgin credit card app. Some years back they removed access via the website (supposedly in the name of improvement) and became app only. The app is a bag of crap by a country mile, and has various bugs that crop up occasionally, such as all transactions disappearing (only to come back a few days later, or, as is the recent case, never) and crashing after updates, and said crashing only being fixed after a complete delete and reinstall. I've given up on it.

northwalesd

Conversely I've never had any issues with the Virgin money CC app, though I don't put that many transactions through it.