WATCH NEXT:
Best UK Challenger Bank - https://youtu.be/8m60CFWCEdo
Completely forgot to mention the fee-free use abroad!
Otherwise a super in-depth review of Starling Bank - everything from the application process to using the card and app and all the features.
I show you things I like, things I don't like and at the end of the video, I give it a score out of 100 to compare it to other challenger banks - find out how Starling performs!
If you are looking to open a new bank account with a challenger bank and you're considering Starling, you'll know everything there is to know about the app - I'll point out a few places where they could improve so you can make your mind up about whether you like it or not.
GET A FREE STOCK IF YOU OPEN A TRADING 212 ACCOUNT
Use my link: https://www.trading212.com/invite/FzYbCfTM
If you open an account using the link above, you will get a random share worth up to £100. I will also get one if you choose to sign up using the link.
CAMERA GEAR I USE
○ My camera - https://bit.ly/sasha-camera
○ Main lens - https://bit.ly/sasha-lens
○ Microphone - https://bit.ly/sasha-mic
○ Tripod - https://bit.ly/sasha-tripod
○ Memory card - https://bit.ly/sasha-card
○ Ring light - https://bit.ly/sasha-light
Full list of gear here: https://kit.co/sashayanshin/sasha-video-gear
CHAPTERS
1. Introduction - 00:00
2. Application - 00:22
3. Unboxing - 02:46
4. Using the App - 04:49
5. Spending on the card - 13:33
6. Sasha Score - 21:42
7. Conclusion - 31:42
Best UK Challenger Bank - https://youtu.be/8m60CFWCEdo
Completely forgot to mention the fee-free use abroad!
Otherwise a super in-depth review of Starling Bank - everything from the application process to using the card and app and all the features.
I show you things I like, things I don't like and at the end of the video, I give it a score out of 100 to compare it to other challenger banks - find out how Starling performs!
If you are looking to open a new bank account with a challenger bank and you're considering Starling, you'll know everything there is to know about the app - I'll point out a few places where they could improve so you can make your mind up about whether you like it or not.
GET A FREE STOCK IF YOU OPEN A TRADING 212 ACCOUNT
Use my link: https://www.trading212.com/invite/FzYbCfTM
If you open an account using the link above, you will get a random share worth up to £100. I will also get one if you choose to sign up using the link.
CAMERA GEAR I USE
○ My camera - https://bit.ly/sasha-camera
○ Main lens - https://bit.ly/sasha-lens
○ Microphone - https://bit.ly/sasha-mic
○ Tripod - https://bit.ly/sasha-tripod
○ Memory card - https://bit.ly/sasha-card
○ Ring light - https://bit.ly/sasha-light
Full list of gear here: https://kit.co/sashayanshin/sasha-video-gear
CHAPTERS
1. Introduction - 00:00
2. Application - 00:22
3. Unboxing - 02:46
4. Using the App - 04:49
5. Spending on the card - 13:33
6. Sasha Score - 21:42
7. Conclusion - 31:42
What's up you guys, sasha here, this review was requested more than any other. Whenever i release a review of another product whenever there's a video, that's completely unrelated people just keep asking for a review of styling. So i just thought: well it's time to do it. Let's go so just like with some of the other challenger banks i applied for this a little while ago, and this arrived the very next day - that's very impressive.
That's the fastest out of all the different products. The envelope is made of this quite nice material and the design is nice. It's sort of like an a5 sized thing now, just a short disclaimer. I didn't go through the full application process for this product, and the reason i didn't is because i already have a business bank account with styling and when you have one account already with styling.
It is very, very easy and very, very quick to go and set up a second. I have actually more than one business account with starting, because i have slightly different companies that have their own business accounts and setting up the second business account. Setting up a personal account when you have a business account setting up a business account when you have a personal account, is super fast and super easy. However, i do remember the original application i made for styling and actually the business application is very, very similar to the personal one in lots of ways.
There's a few extra questions that they ask you about your company, but the actual personal identity, verification. All of those steps, i think, are pretty much identical, and so i can talk about them in a little bit of detail now. The one thing that i do like about their application is, it was rigorous enough to make me understand that they're genuinely doing a full validation and they should because they're an actual bank. They did feel like they went slightly above and beyond.
Some of the others, and i know monzo have been upping their game on that acquisition, journey side of things, but styling really have nailed it with the video verification. So when you actually apply they make you do a little video where you say something to the camera and turn your face so that they can confirm that you are you and that you're applying on your own behalf, and it's not somebody doing it instead of you. It's quite good, and it's very fast. The matching of your face to the document that you have to hold up next to your face is very good and works extremely well.
I was very very impressed with the application journey. It's probably the best one out of all the different banks and challenger banks that i've actually done so far, even though it wasn't the fastest. It wasn't as quick as some of the others, but it felt far better and there was nothing wrong. There was no issue so when you type in the address they optimize to make it as easy as possible from just entering your postcode and then a selection process, so every single step of the application journey was optimized as much as possible. I i i'm. I was very impressed, so let's go and open this and see. What's inside you get a nice card with an embossed styling bank on it in the logo and it says, say hello to your new card. A new kind of bank deserves a new kind of card, and this one might just change the way you feel about your money.
Now you can see that this card is vertical they're, actually, the first to start this new trend that a lot of the other challenger banks seem to be copying now to make a vertical card, just like with some of the other cards that i've reviewed. It's kind of a nice touch and it certainly works. If you have a wallet like i do, which is a vertical card holder like this, because when you pull out the card, it kind of looks nice. The problem is the vast majority of people.
Don't have a wallet like this, the vast majority people carry their cards horizontally and in this case, when you're actually pulling it out, you'll see like a sort of k on his back and you'll see the mastercard logo when you're pulling it out. First, it seems kind of pointless. Now i do get the color is pretty unique. So if you see a small bit of it, sticking out from your wallet you will know which card it is.
The funny thing is that the back of the card is actually horizontal. So the front is vertical, but the back is horizontal, so it has the same mag stripe. It has my last three digits card number name, the expiry and my account number now. It is kind of cool because everything's on the back, so you can show the front of the card, and none of your sensitive information is printed on there.
I actually do like the idea of not having anything printed on the front. It's actually completely pointless. It was last used when you have the machines where you had to go and physically scan the card, and nowadays they don't do anything other than just be there. So it's nice to have them on the back.
I can see this is my business card and the two look pretty much identical, except for the word business on them, they're slightly different colors. Now i'm a sucker for good design and the design of this minimalist packaging is phenomenal. You can see the instructions here of what you need to do once you receive the card and they are super super easy open. Your app find the pin in there and tap, let's see if it is as easy as that i haven't actually activated or done anything with it um.
Let's do it so you log in using your thumbprint, which is nice. You think everyone would already have this, but they don't. So. This is what the home screen looks like you can see your balance.
You can see the stuff you spend today. If you swipe it right, you can see the stuff you spent in july. So this is the one thing that i'm not a big fan of with styling, and that is the layout of where the different things are. So, in order to see your transactions, you have to do the swiping from the bottom and you will see them there when they appear now. I know that i don't have any yet. I will show you what that looks like once. I've done something, but this is highly not intuitive. Unless you know that that is what you need to do, it's actually quite difficult to find.
So if you can hit spending and if it's spending you can then see your various monthly spending habits and categories and merchants, and things like that, then you hit home, but if you're looking for just your transactions, unless you know that you have to do this, it's Not super intuitive, in fact, some of the other bits of this app suffer from the same thing. So if you need to go and share your bank account details with somebody like i had to, you might be wondering. Well, where is the bit where i find my bank account? You might think. Maybe it's going to be in payments after all, i want somebody to pay me and you hit that now.
If you hit request money, then you can get. Your bank account details because the three options are nearby payments. So if somebody is physically nearby and has a styling app, you can go and use this feature. You can request money by sending a link to anybody who is money and they can use the link to make a payment to your account or you can share your account details and if you hit that you'll see your account number and your international iban and bitcode.
This is relatively simple, but there's quite a few clicks to to get there, and you really need to look hard to find it. It's not quite as straightforward as with some of the other banks, and the other thing i don't like is there's quite a lot of duplication. So you can also find your bank details by hitting this icon in the top right and then hitting your account information and then hitting account details again. Lots of clicks and lots of steps.
And you can see all the same information in here and you can go and hit share details to get the same pop-up. But it seems unnecessary because, basically just duplicating the same information in various different parts of the menu and the navigation is just not quite as obvious as it could be. Now, if you hit card, you can then go ahead and activate it. So let's go and do that they ask you for the three digits on the back of your card.
So all you're going to do is type them in your card has been activated and they show you an online payment code, which is the payment code that you would use if you're making transactions online as an extra layer of security. They also show you your entire card details on there. The only issue i do have with it is, if you hit card, the entire set of information about your card is printed on there. Now that unique code does change all the time.
So, just because somebody has seen that unique code over there doesn't mean they can actually go and do a transaction, but the rest of the information is just printed straight on there. It would be nice if they were hidden behind some kind of button there to press, or at least not show the cvv number or have some other slight layer of security on there. But that's that's that's a very minor point. You can lock the card and then your card is locked, you can go and unlock the card and then the card is unlocked again. The card controls are incredibly detailed. I really do like this. You can turn on some really great features in here. The location based fraud protection is super neat.
It means that when you go and walk around with your card and your phone, you will be able to use it, but if somebody gets hold of your actual card, but not your phone, they won't be able to make payments with it. If somebody clones your card, they won't be able to make payments with it because they physically won't be in the same location as you. This is incredibly good. You can honestly manually turn on and off different kinds of transactions.
If you don't want them to ever be feasible, or at least temporarily disable them for security, which is great, you can turn off online payments atm withdrawals, even gambling payments as a thing, you can actually go and turn it off, and it will ask you if you're Sure - and it will ask you if you want any other help regarding to gambling - i mean i think this is fantastic, so you can go and turn off gambling payments now you can turn it back on and it does give you some information to make sure that You're happy with it, but turning it back on takes 48 hours to activate it, to prevent you from doing it in spur of the moment. If you just decided to gamble, you won't be able to do it with this card. I actually think this is a great feature, because if you first turned off gambling payments intentionally, it just gives you that little bit of breathing room. I think these these things are great.
You can enable max drive payments which pretty much don't exist, except for some countries, and you can do something that i haven't seen on any other app of any regular bank challenger bank. Anything else, you're gon na unblock your pin or cvv number. This is amazing. So what this does is if your card gets blocked, because you forgot your pin or because you had some kind of issue with the payment terminal which does happen from time to time with every other bank you will have to phone them up and you'll have to Wait on the phone you'll have to get through to the fraud team answer a bunch of security questions and then they'll ask you: if that transaction attempt was you or not all of those steps you have to go and phone them up here? You can do this entire process by hitting this unblock button down here.
This is great. This is an extremely useful feature, because my card gets blocked all the time whenever i travel, if i'm in somewhere that i haven't been before. If i try to do some really simple basic transactions and my card gets blocked and i have to go and phone them to unblock it here, i can do it through the app you can replace the card very easily if you've lost it or has been stolen Or if you just broke it washed in the washing machine and stopped working whatever it is, the price is very simple: you just hit this control down here. You can view a pin reminder, and this is pretty good, so you have to go and type in your account password over here. It shows you your pin um over here for five seconds. You have to be pretty quick to get it because, if you're just looking in the wrong place, you might not quite catch it and then it goes away now. You can't change your pin from within the app you have to go and use the cash machine that allows you to do that. Instead, you can't go and do it on the app which some providers do allow you to do, but the beauty here is you actually get to set your own pin when you're first signing up for the product.
So when you're doing that, you basically decide what it is, so hopefully you don't need to change it because it's not actually set for you. You get to decide in the first instance, so i don't think that's much of an issue now. Some of the other features you can see here the card and payments limit. You have a 10 000 pound daily transaction limit and that's a maximum of 50 transactions 300 pounds a day withdrawn in cash.
All of these are reasonably straightforward, but you actually have to go to a slightly different part of the app you have to hit home. You have to go up here top right and you have to go and look at account information and interest rates in order to see some of the remaining bits. They actually pay. You interest on any balances that you keep in your account.
Now it is extremely low. It is not 0.95, so this is no kind of savings account. This is not the way that you should be saving or investing or doing anything else, but for any money that just happens to sit in your account, you do get paid the small amount which a lot of banks nowadays, just don't do, and certainly the other challenger Banks, they don't do it. Monzo have recently released their plus account where they pay you one percent, but they charge you five pounds a month for the privilege, which is a lot more than the interest will actually be.
So i think this is a nice little feature. Even though it's not really gon na do very much for you now, the other thing you can do is you can go and manage your overdraft through the app as well and is telling me that i can't even apply for an overdraft, because i am not able To be offered it now, i have a pretty decent credit score, so i am guessing that this is some kind of restriction that they've placed on my account for internal reasons or they're, just not offering overdraft to either all customers or select customers at the moment. So when i apply didn't give me an overdraft and because it's been less than 90 days since that moment, i can't go and actually request a review of that. So it doesn't really bother me. I don't want to use the overdraft in any case or pay the fees associated. So that's not much of an issue. So now, let's go ahead and load a bit of money into this and see how the app works and looks once you actually have a transaction or two in there. Now a nice security feature about the app is every single time you come out of the app and then you go back into the app it asks you to go and put your thumb on it.
This might feel a bit frustrating or annoying, but i think this is excellent, because if you just happen to put your phone down and somebody picks it up, they can't go into your banking app without having your thumbprint um. Again, i'm a big fan. Now i deposited 20 pounds into the account in order to do so. I have to go and manually type in the sort code and account number, but the beauty here is you can go and actually copy these from inside the app one at a time.
So you can then paste it into the other side. This is such a small thing, but it's so useful because so many other accounts just don't let you do it. So you keep switching between the apps trying to remember three digits at a time and typing them into the other one, and then just double and triple checking to make sure you got it right here. You just literally just got copy them paste them into the other.
App and you're done so here i've got 20 pounds, let's go and buy something so i've gone and bought myself a gladys knight and the pips album for my vinyl collection and it cost me 17 pounds and 99 pence. So i have two pounds and one penny remaining. So if i swipe up, you can now see my transactions over here. You can see the 20 pound deposit and you can see the amazon transaction a few minutes later and for each of the transaction types you can go and see some more details about it.
It's telling you that it's pending, so all good challenger banks do do this. They show you the transaction as though it's gone through, even though it is still in the pending status, but some of the older school banks. They may show you nothing at all, or they may show you the transaction in a separate part above grade out, showing that it's pending instead. I actually think this is much better for customers.
I think everyone should begin doing this because the transaction has gone through, the authorization has been granted and just because it hasn't cleared technically within the banking systems doesn't really mean anything. The customer doesn't care. So you can do a few interesting things here. You can add a note.
Oh this was the gladys knight album done, you can add an attachment. So if you need to save a receipt for example - and you don't actually want to carry around, you can go and do that. That's pretty neat and you can go and split the transaction, which again is incredibly useful. So if i want to share this with somebody, i can go and send them a link and when they click the link, they're able to then go and pay a part of the transaction to me through the styling bank's payment platform. This is very neat. I love this. I think this is a very, very nice solution. A lot of people try to do this type of stuff, the splitting and making it sort of easy to go and divide something like in a restaurant between different people.
I actually think this is one of the better ways that this has been done. It's not in your face not trying to make you do it every single time you buy. Something is very easy to find within the transaction and it's just a bit more subtle and it works extremely well when i actually have used it previously, so um a thumbs up for that. So if you hit spending, you will see the same transactions in here and it's very easy you can swipe between the different months.
You can just click the individual months to go straight to them, and this is very nice. You can actually then go and group your transactions by immersion. So let's say you have multiple different transactions by amazon. They will group them for you um, very, very nice, a really great and super simple thing here.
Is they automatically assign categories to the different transaction types which not everyone does and the guys who do? Do it somewhere else? Don't do it as well? You don't have to manually, go and say well, this particular thing is shopping, or that particular thing is something else. It's literally done for you um over here. If you want to change it, you just go ahead and click transaction, and you can see here it's assigned to shopping, you can click that and you can change it to whatever you want. The thing i like about this is: whichever way you go through the menu options when you're doing this stuff, you can get to the same place by just clicking.
You don't have to go out, so you can just click close and if i go to home and i go and click on the same transaction, i can see exactly the same screen um. I think this is a really neat feature now. Let's talk about one thing, which is the way you can actually put money into this account now, if i hit payments again and then i go and hit the same request money, you can see that i've got the nearby payments. I can request money from someone by using the link and i can share my account details, but there's actually other ways that i can move money into this account and again we're coming back to this.
One gripe i have with this, which is the menu, is just not very obvious. So if you hit this top right menu option - and then you hit add money here, they'll tell you, your bank account details again and you can see your bank account details in like five or six different screens, but anyway, now there are two ways that you can Deposit money in here other than the three that we've just covered the first option on this menu is actually not moving money to your account they're just trying to get you to switch. They know that you have another account somewhere they're wanting you to use styling, as your main account. So essentially, this is a bit of marketing and i'm not a big fan of that, because basically it is slightly misleading. It's not a way of adding anything they're. Just trying to get you to switch, but the next two options are great at first, you can deposit checks, and this is something that a lot of other challenger banks just don't do the ones that do do. It are incredibly clumsy, even big names like monzo. They don't do this, you have to go and post your check to an address that they give you and it takes weeks.
It takes a number of weeks for the check to be added to your bank account. This allows you to do it right away by just taking a photo. I think this is a phenomenal feature, because they're basically saying that all the things you can do with the normal bank, you can still do here which the other challenger banks just completely ignore. The next thing is cash, and this again is really amazing, so you can go and deposit cash into your bank account for free at any post office branch, and there are more post office branches.
The most high street banks have branches themselves and they're usually closer to where you live. This is a phenomenal feature. The next feature they have here is their marketplace now. This is one that a lot of people probably won't use very much, but if you do use it, it is great.
They have a different marketplace for business accounts and i use that extensively because it links to all the different tools that you use in your business. Like accounting software and the way that they link to them is perfect, it is amazingly fast. It is much better than any of the other apps. The same goes for all the different personal apps that you can use and you can just go and click, and you can go and add any of these services directly from your account and the two will be linked.
It is incredibly well done. I'm very impressed with how these things work. Now the great thing is they're not trying to just sell you stuff here, they're literally just giving you these options to other companies and other fintechs to be able to use your styling account with them in the simplest possible way. I think this is phenomenal.
Um all power to them. I hope this marketplace offering grows and you can do more and more with your starting account in this way. Now, on the right hand, side of this menu there's a thing called spaces, and this is probably not the best bit of this app i'll have to be honest. First of all, what is spaces i mean, if you don't know, if you haven't clicked on it, it tells you nothing about what it is. You have to go and click it, and even here it's not quite obvious, so you can hit the savings goal space and what it will do is create a screen. So let's say you want to go and save for buying something that is expensive. Let's say you want to go and buy a new camera, so you're going to say camera fund you're going to create a goal. Now i get what they're trying to do they're trying to get you to set money aside for some bigger purchases so that you can move money into it over time.
But this is quite clumsy, so i've just set this up and i can click on the various parts of the screen and there's no way to actually set what my target is, i can add money, and it will ask me how much i can add. I can add up to the two pounds that i have, but you actually have to go and click this little manage button in the top right and there you can go and type in the target amount. So let's say you buy in camera that cost you 500 pounds. You can go and type in 500 hit done.
Then your goal gets updated, and now you can see that you are adding 500 pounds. I kind of feel like this should be part of the initial setup process, so you can add something by using this photo thing over here, but you can't actually take the photo from inside the app a small oversight. So you have to have taken the photo first and then you can add it. I kind of feel like this bit of the app really needs a bit of work, because they don't have the same ease of splitting your account into various pots.
They don't have all of that stuff that some of the other guys have that some people really like, like being able to set separate pots for different types of transactions, so that, when you have a transaction of that particular type come out, it goes out of the Pot that you've assigned to that form of transaction. So let's say you pay rent every single month. You can go and sign the money for the next month or three months or however long you want to be in that pot. So that, then, with your other spending, you can't touch the money that is assigned for rent with this.
You can't do any of those things. So that's a slight downside. I think if you're gon na have features like what they're talking about, which is the spaces and targets and be able to split your balances up into these different parts. I think they could take it quite a lot further and make it more intuitive and easier to use, and now we have come to the bit that you have been waiting for.
This is the bit where we taught up all the different parts of the experience and the journey i'm going to go and score them, and i'm going to tell you exactly why i've scored them the way i have got my notes here. So first, let's start with talking about the application, and there are three things that we discussed: there's the application, speed, application simplicity and the onboarding process. Let's start with speed for speed, styling gets a 7 out of 10.. It is fast, it is pretty good, but there are a few elements that just take a little bit longer than i would have liked, and i know that they do it because they kind of have to because they want to be extra robust with their anti-fraud and Anti-Money laundering and anti-everything else processes, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you're looking at speed only they're, not quite as fast as some other people or as they could be, if they didn't take those things into account as much for application, simplicity, styling scores. A solid 10 out of 10 - and i don't give too many tens out, but in this case the entire journey was super simple in terms of onboarding. Again, i'm gon na give this one a 10 and the reason is quite simple. There is nothing that i can think of. They can do better in any shape or form before the cutter ride.
I could do absolutely anything that i wanted to do in the app navigate to play around with it, which some of the other apps don't allow you to do once the car did arrive. The next day the packaging was phenomenal. The instructions inside were absolutely perfect. There's just no way in which this can be better so again that scores a 10, and that means the application total for styling is a really really strong 27 out of 30..
Next, let's talk about using the card, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the card. I actually really like the fact that the numbers are printed on the back, so that if you ever go and use your card, not all of your information is being flashed at everyone. If you're not choosing to do so and we're giving it a nine making payments. I've, given it another nine out of ten, actually i really really like the payment processing here, um in various different guys.
The actual making payments is very, very nicely done. I really like the one-time payment code that you can view on the app as a method of verification. I think it's super neat and other people should go and look at it and maybe make their processes as easy. If you're with hsbc or first direct, you probably have seen those ugly calculatory little mini things that you have to carry around with you, so that if you ever log on online or if you want to make a payment online to somebody, you haven't made a payment Before they go and make you type in various things into that to get a secret code out, i just think this is a much much needed solution, so other people should definitely take note.
I actually also think some of the other payment transaction related things with styling are better than even pretty much all high street banks. So talking about post office locations for cash and the fact that you can withdraw and pay in cash for free as a consumer is absolutely perfect. The hours of post offices are generally pretty good as well, which really helps the fact that you can go and scan in checks using the app and make the payments into your account. That way is phenomenal. You can send money abroad, and this is probably the one thing where maybe one or two the competitors are going to be mildly. Better now, do you charge your fees and it costs 5.50 for swift or 30p if you're transferring something into euros. For example, if you play around there's, certainly different fees. The one thing i didn't like is: if you look closely enough, you can see that there's an extra 40p charge being added on top of the ones that are advertising and there's nothing really written about what that 4dp is for.
That's probably the one thing that docked the final score for me. I didn't like that sneaky little thing that they really didn't have to do that's kind of one of the very few things i don't like about the styling ad that very sneaky 40p, exactly who is earning it, what you're paying it for? It's not really explained to you. I don't really like that too much, but that's why i didn't get the full 10. for the app and the online account i've given styling a seven out of ten - and i was thinking about this one quite hard i think - could have been even lower now.
The app is generally pretty good, it has pretty good features, it has very reasonable functionality, but the menu navigation system could be considerably better, cleaner and simpler to understand, there's just things that just aren't really obvious like what is spaces. Where do i find my bank account details like the the fact that there are many options in the top right in the top left in the bottom row and once you've clicked in any of them and there's a secondary in your third layer of menus? And you can some things can be quite difficult to find, and i didn't really like that very much because of that i've, given it just a 7 out of 10.. Also, the fact that there is no web-based account is to me a big downside. Businesses do have the ability to go and log on to styling online and do things there, but as a consumer, you don't have that option and i kind of get that people are trying to force everyone to be on mobile.
But i think that's a massive downside. If you're making a very large payment on a desktop, it is that much easier to be certain that you've copied something across and it's exactly the same. You can compare two things side by side and just go and check the details are correct if you're doing any kind of analysis of your transactions, i'm trying to understand exactly what happened. It is incredibly easy on a desktop and it is actually considered more difficult on a mobile, no matter which app or which tool you use to do it.
I don't really see the benefit of absolutely not having a desktop version of your mobile app um. I think that's a downside and for that uh we've docked it a couple of points so we're giving it a 7 out of 10. for customer service. I have given this one a very, very strong nine out of ten. Now i didn't expect their customer service to be quite that good, but it is much better than any of the other challenger banks. I am very very impressed. You have three options: if you're trying to contact them, the contact stuff is sort of hidden a little bit, but it is with pretty much every online banking provider. At the moment, it is not as hidden as with some of the others, and if you go in there, your options are to chat to send them a message or to call all of these options are available.
24 7, which is really incredible with the chat i actually just like, i normally do. I went and entered the chat and asked them some basic question. The same question. I've asked in the other reviews, which didn't yield a very good answer.
I was position 14 in the queue and it took me six minutes just about six minutes for somebody to reply. I didn't like the fact that the robot sent me like four automated messages in that time frame, but when they did come after six minutes, the answer was very, very precise, very accurate and very helpful. If i genuinely wanted to know the answer to the question, i was asking so thumbs up for that and the fact that you can call them and get through pretty quickly as well, i think, is a big plus some other banks do not have a call option At all, so massive massive win, i'm very happy with that product features i've, given this one, a six out of ten now, let me tell you why i do love the features that they do have some of the things and the way they work within the app Are very neat they're, very simple, they're, very intuitive. I like the check and cash deposits as features, i think, they're great, but there is no overdraft.
There's no explanation as to why or what the overdraft may be or why you do or don't qualify. It doesn't really help you in any way whatsoever. There's no lending options at all, so they don't offer their own. They don't offer third-party lending.
They don't really give you any options and, as a bank account, you kind of expect that to be at least an option of some sort, the savings parts and all of that kind of distributing your money into various different parts and assigning transactions to automatically come out Of certain parts doesn't really exist with styling. They have that goal, oriented thing where you can save money over time for a big purchase or something like that, and even that bit is a bit clumsy. It doesn't quite work as well as it should. It's definitely nowhere near as good as monzo's, so for that reason it scores a 6 out of 10 on the features design, i've, given it a 7 out of 10..
Now everything looks great. The look and feel of the app is is really nice. It's very smooth! The animation of everything is really nice. I i have no problem with that.
The welcome letter also is phenomenal. The design of all of that stuff is perfect um. I would give it a 10 out of 10. If that's all, i was looking at, but the functionality and the menus are very awkward, and that is definitely part of the design. Just the thinking of how the customer will interact with the product and where they might go for certain things and how easy it is for somebody who has never seen this app before to find these things. I think that thinking could be a lot better. The vertical design of a card is a little bit of a gimmick. It doesn't really achieve anything other than looking different to its competition, but unlike monies, who copied them, they did the smart thing of having the back of the card horizontal and what that means is, if you're, using any of these online app payment things where you can Take a picture of your card, they will actually recognize the styling card, they will read the number and they will read all the other dates, so you can make payments using that take a photo feature which, on the monies, you can't do because they've printed, the back Of the card vertically, as well, which is completely pointless because suddenly all the future proof all the kind of simple payment methods, just don't work with that card.
So i think they probably thought about that when they designed it. But i don't really understand why the front of the card has to be vertical as well. Now, the last one is comparing stunning banks features to its core competitors, so we're talking monzo revolut monies all of these kind of guys, and for that styling scores. A very impressive nine: it has massive massive advantages over the other challenger banks with things like cash deposits, with things like check deposits with the integration with other services and third party providers of things like pensions and money management tools and all of that kind of stuff.
I think they are so far ahead on all of those things that i they would have scored a 10 if it wasn't for some of the downsides. So probably the big downside is the saving pots and all of that side of things which i've already mentioned a little bit. So the total for the experience side of using the card adds up to 31 out of 40, which is very impressive because when you add all of these different elements up, the grand total is 83 out of 100. That is incredible.
That is by far the highest score that i've had so far, and i don't see another challenger bank coming close to this one for some time in other product categories. Maybe somebody will be there or they're about, but for challenger bank current accounts. This is incredibly good. Overall super happy word: if you have a starting bank account, please make sure you leave a comment below and tell me what you think tell me whether you agree or disagree with the things that i've just mentioned.
Tell me if there's things that i've missed out or forgotten to mention, i would love to hear your thoughts below if you like this video, if you like the amount of effort and the amount of time i spent putting this video together and trust me, it takes A huge amount of effort to plan these go and look through every single little part of the product go and read all the paperwork go and edit them together and put them out. It takes me days and days and days to produce one of these. If you like this video, please make sure you hit the like button for the youtube algorithm. It will mean that this video can be shown to more people over time. I really really appreciate it if you're interested about more videos about personal finance products about personal finance in general investments, credit cards, any of that side of things about managing money, making money online. All of those topics, that's exactly what i talk about on this channel three times a week on a monday, wednesday and friday, so make sure you subscribe to the channel, hit the bell to get notifications every time. One of my videos comes out and i'll see you guys later.
I’ve just opened a starling account and like you I rate it very highly. I’m struggling to find the way of sending money between accounts. So in my case I’ve got a personal account and a joint account. How do I send money from my personal account to my joint account
Hey, could you possibly do a video on cars? Is it good to buy electric (Tesla) cause of petrol and diesel car tax and restrictions in the future?
Also, maybe best way to pay for one (I genuinely don't know). Most people I know just get used cars and say it's the smartest option to avoid depreciation. But I want to get a Tesla in the future and I think the used car prices will still be high. And maybe financing might be too much of a commitment. Not really sure, most videos that talk about this on YouTube are americans but would appreciate a UK specific one.
Love your channel!
Useful video Sasha. I would be interested if they opened current accounts for British citizens not ordinarily resident in the UK. You said you need to enter your postcode when you apply so I guess that rules us expats out! Do you have any advice or videos that cover UK banking options for expats please?
I hadn't realised that the iPhone and Android apps were different until I watched this! I've just made a video showing what the Android version looked like. I included a screenshot/link telling people to come watch this video instead if they've got an iPhone.
Great review. What software do you use to blur our sensitive details? I make videos about crypto and Camtasia doesn't move the blur with any text that is animated or moving.
Are the Online banks like Starling Bank, in general, trustworthy if sponsors want transfer millions on your business account? What if they take them and shut down their business and disappear?
Hi!
Is this a good account if I want to start working as a student? Are there any fees if I transfer euros from my home account (from EU) to the Starling account?
Thank you in advance
I really like starling The app is great switching to euros and back gbp is fantastic wish have paid 1 percent interest but cant have everything a class actually
Just to add about layout comment the layout on android phones is completely different looking to iphones but easy to follow so app layout is dependent on type of phone
I've been full time Starling for about 3 years now, coming from 18 years with Lloyds. Couldn't be happier, most of my family and friends have moved also. Just for info – Desktop access is coming very soon.
I have just started using my Starling Bank account and it's been pretty seamless so far. I paid some cash in at a post office and it was on the account immediately. I find the notifications as money moves on our out to be very reassuring. When I used it abroad it was excellent, converting the amount to GBP instantly. I have used the help chat and have been happy enough with that. I'm a believer!
Great video. Thanks. I actually switched to Monzo from Starling purely because Starling don’t allow payments to be taken from ‘pots’ or ‘goals’. So if you forget to transfer – which I did, the payment gets missed 😐 I’d be very grateful if you could suggest a way around this. Thanks again.
The fact that there is no desktop service for businesses, i would give that a zero out of 10. It is so important to be able to view business info on a desktop.
I switched to Starling a little over a month ago and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I 100% agree that overall it is the best challenger bank – I have Starling, Monzo and Revolut and my preference was definitely with Starling, hence why they’re now my main current account! I have recommended Starling to a few friends and family now and they love it too! 😊
Excellent review thank you. I switched to starling in may from hsbc and am very pleased with them. Dont miss hsbc at all. Agree on points about things hard to find i had that issue at first finding account info. There is another feature of spaces where u can connect a dedicated card they send out to space if u wanted to give card to someone to buy something if u cant get out! Wat review is next ?
For me the most important is the experience while using the app, how good is budgeting, how many features it has. Money I want to save or invest goes to Moneybox/Wealthify etc, so unless someone does something more like ex Revolut does (stock market, gold market, crypto market) I am not really excited by it. I am putting some "Emergency fund" money on Starling, and it is the only thing I am using it for. App itself has literally 3 features: sending money, spaces, categories – nothing unique, nothing special and it looks like another app from 90ties.
Thanks for the video Sasha – love the attention to detail of all the app elements. I opened a Starling account to have a separate account for everyday spending. Allocating a set amount to spend each month and once the money is gone it is gone. I actually really like the Spaces feature if you have a relatively small amount to save up for (under £1k) as the money is added automatically and you can surprise yourself if when you check back on the space a few months later. I hoped they would add a feature whereby at the end of a month if you have any funds remaining in your account they would automatically get transferred to your main Space.
FYI a quicker way to get your bank details is to press the + symbol next to the account balance at least that is how it works with the Android Version
Also there is a button in the bottom right hand corner on the Android version which brings transactions right up much easier than the iOS version it seems
Switched to Starling a couple of months ago. At first it felt a bit dodgy since it was all online. Normally with a bank you expect to visit a branch and see an actual person handling the paperwork, but with digital banks it's all different. However I read around and confirmed that it was approved by the Bank of England and the FCA/FSCS, so I took the plunge. I really liked it! I switched all my money there and I'm really happy with it.
I like it a lot more than Lloyd's "boomer" interface. Felt clunky, and a lot of the security features they had were only security theater, they didn't improve security (or worse, they sometimes worsened it!).
Plus, I felt a bit better how I moved my money away from a mainstream bank that was involved in all sorts of scandals since its founding so many centuries ago, and into a new bank that was trying to do something different.
As for features, you are right, the Spaces feature needs a bit of work. Plus, I wish they would issue a different card for Euro transactions instead of sharing the same card for both GBP and EUR payments.
Also, I really really wish they had a desktop browser view for personal accounts. I'm not saying that the app isn't good, but sometimes you really want to sit down on a desktop and do your work there. Sometimes swiping and tapping at your phone is just too cumbersome.
Overall however I'm very happy with it!
I love Starling, but their app experience is really lacking in some areas. Aside from the usability issues you mentioned, the Android app is considerably worse for navigation than its iOS counterpart. That handy bottom shortcut bar? Completely hidden behind a hamburger menu to the left of the screen, which not only hides everything out of sight but also doubles the steps to access those features. The pull-up gesture to access transactions has been replaced by a (rather ugly) green button in the corner of the screen that doesn't tell you anything about its function before clicking on it. Custom pictures for Spaces take a small, but noticeable delay to appear, and not only when first opening the Spaces list, either. Scrolling too fast between the tabs in the Payments section results in a small (but again, noticeable) delay in the Scheduled Payments list being populated (it briefly shows the default image and text that appears when it's empty). Things like this wouldn't massively bother me with a high street bank, but given that Starling require you to use the app for well, everything, these little annoyances add up. So whilst I think Starling have mostly nailed down the banking side of things, I think Monzo provide a far superior experience on Android. For now, anyway.
I used starling for over a year now and just love it because of its great service like no international transaction fee compared to the traditional banks, plus its first one in the game if digital banking
Starling gave me a massive £30,000 overdraft when i opened a normal account, it was ridiculously large and i had not requested one, i don't use overdrafts so i rang them up and had it removed, cant fault the bank though well pleased when using it for travel.
Another excellent review!
I was recommended this card just before a holiday to Greece. No prior interest in "challenger banks". But the immediate selling point was being able to use the card in Europe, without attracting the fees that my Lloyds account does. That was fantastic and got me more interested in the product.
The areas you mentioned as not being particularly intuitive or taking too many steps, I found easy to learn and navigate. And I was a complete novice at this product.
It's not perfect, but it's built well enough that I now use it to squirrel away my excess savings and use the spaces to cover big annual bills like car insurance/servicing. Low interest rates aside, it has been a great way to save more, help budget and not have it all in my main Lloyds account. Brilliant so far.
I have both starling and monzo the app layout of features is different on Android to your ios for example there is no unlock pin/ccv on Android I like the fact with starling that you can pay in money at the post office for free where as with monzo it costs £1 so I use starling to pay cash in then transfer it to monzo I agree with what you said about the spaces not being able to pay certain things direct from spaces like you can with monzo I use monzo to put all my direct debits and standing orders into a pot and the get paid directly from them so then I know what money is left in my account to spend so i find it easier for budgeting then I would if I did it with starling also with monzo I think the ui is better then it is with starling and more colorful plus the spending category with monzo appear better witn monzo plus one thing I have noticed is that if I spend any money at aldi using starling its doesn't put the logo up in the spending category compared to monzo which does put the logo up i do like starling but I prefer to use monzo but starling is better for using abroad as the spending limits are higher compared to monzo so I use both starling and monzo to the most out of the features that each provide sorry if its a bit long winded but this is my personal opinion p.s keep up the good work
Really loving the detail again. I have a Starling account and I really think you've been fair in your assessment. Definitely some things could be improved, but on the whole it's a great product. I always recommend this account to friends and family.
Looking forward to making some videos that aren't reviews soon. You might think 30 minutes is long – I had to cram about 5 hours of my rambling into it and that's after the research! Editing these things is insane – PLEASE LIKE if you find it interesting!