Starling bank

[rumandbiscuits]

Does anybody have an account with starling bank? I've been reading up on them and they sound really good! Was wondering if anybody else would recommend or have any experience with them? Thanks.

I'd recommend them but as with all these "start up" banks be a little bit careful. Essentially you're insured up to about £70k in any bank account, but if you have more than that, you could lose it if the bank went under. Most of these small ones are underwritten by a big one anyway.

They're good though, much better customer service, can get stuff done quickly, don't have to wait in queues etc.

I would and do recommend them and we have our main day to day spending account with them, along with savings pots. I've had good experiences except once, when I queried a transaction: the notification (you can have these every time the account is used and for a joint account is shows who made the transaction) showed as me having withdrawn cash which I categorically had not. Customer services refused to accept there could be anything wrong and that there was any possibility of fraud (despite what my googling told me). Now, in the end it turned out my OH had made the transaction so all was well but I've still not had it explained to me why and how the notification showed it as a transaction made by me and not by him and why they believe there is no potential for fraud if a pin is used. I didn't like the attitude of the customer services individual at all.

Thank you both for your feedback. I have decided to go ahead with it and signed up to an account today, just waiting now for them to do all the checks.

Myself and DP have individual and a joint account with them. I also have a euro account for holidays (I can flick between my pounds sterling and euro account on the app and use the same card). I can only say good things about them! Customer service is excellent. The app is brilliant.

I have one, it helps me budget my day to day spending. My salary and all my bills come out of my main account and on payday I transfer a lump sum to the starling account and use that for my spends/food/petrol throughout the month. And I can check on overspending on day to day stuff.
I have actually never felt so in control of my spending as I do now.

LMW
I didn't realise there was a euro account?!
Well that would be useful - does it mean there are no atm cash withdrawal charges when in the EU?

You don't even need a euro account to get fee free spending and withdrawals abroad as you get this on the standard account - obviously it depends on the exchange rate and whether you have an income in euros/dollars etc as to how it works out as there's always a risk that the currency rates could go against you in either direction.

I have one mainly for overseas use but I'm thinking of closing my 'pocket money' account and just using the Starling account all the time.

But to answer the OPs question, yes, they're really good.

Starling is ace. Love the free to use abroad. Love the app and the fact purchases appear instantly so you can really track spending.

Yes I use mine like TheWordWomanIsTaken does, by transferring a budget spend over from my current account to help keep track of my day to day spending. There are some nice features like notifications to your phone when you spend, rounding up and the difference going automatically into a savings pots, and it's cheap to use abroad. I would use it as my current account but I was declined an overdraft by them despite having an excellent credit score. I wondered if this might be because interest rates are going up on overdrafts and they are trying to be seen as responsible lenders? When my kids are older I imagine this is exactly the sort of bank account they would use, the main banks seem light years behind compared to the customer friendly platform of banks like Starling.