Does First Direct have transaction notifications for money in and out and card payments?
“Coming soon”
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Anyone know why this is so delayed when other HSBC brands have it active?
Because FD customers probably don’t care if they have them or not, I would guess.
There was at one point a suggestion that since they had finished the rollout for HSBC, First Direct would be next and would start to roll out in Dec 2021. But then nothing. They’ve been “coming soon” for a long time now.
Apparently, according to FD on Twitter, mid this year (So Mar 2025 then)
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CASS to a bank that offers them seems like the more beneficial approach if you really need the notifications. It doesn’t seem like a priority to first direct
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Separate implementations of a common system, perhaps with less in common than you might imagine. Same with M&S Bank and JLFS.
Case in point - First Direct switches to using debit Mastercards, as a result HSBC’s own ATM network no longer recognised them as HSBC Group cards.
Each entity has different priorities, evidently.
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I think you’re right. The majority of First Direct’s customers are an older, very loyal, crowd who have been with First Direct for years and are happy with the service they’re receiving. Instant notifications would be a novelty that they might, or might not, find useful, but they are managing quite well without them.
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I’ve just switched to FD from Barclays and I’m hoping push notifications will be live soon.
There seems to be lots of comments on Trust Pilot about it and the replies from First Direct seem to imply they are working hard to bring them as they know customers want them - (whatever age they maybe)
I remember, once upon a time we never thought HSBC were ever going to offer push notifications and then suddenly they were activated.
Yes, but they’ve been saying that for well over two years now, at least. I’m not saying that they are never coming, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they never do.
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In today’s fast-paced world, the ability to stay connected and manage finances on-the-go has become increasingly important. Push notifications can be a valuable tool for those who are always on the move, but as it was mentioned above some customer don’t desperately need this feature maybe that it the reason this is in development stage for quite a bit.
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Pretty sure they were “coming soon” when I left them for Starling in July 2020.
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Anyone aware of any update here? It has been so long that they have promised them.
Well the last update was “mid 2023” when I asked back early this year.
TL;DR - I don’t think we’ll ever see them.
There was a small period where things came to FD first over HSBC but seemingly that has stopped. Nearly all the new things have come to the latter first. My guess is that HSBC wants the new custom instead and FD is becoming the poor cousin.
I’m also guessing it’s the same team who worked on HSBC notifications and they’re busing improving them alongside other development.
It’s also apparent if you look on the customer forum for both apps. The HSBC varient is significantly more active and looks like they’re really pushing forward with development of new features.
I remember a thread on fintech talk about this, someone with seemingly in-house knowledge was keeping good updates around HSBC and inferred that FD were next. Then “stuff happened”
As a customer (albeit dormant as I use HSBC) I would love them, I find it really hard not having them these days
showing under coming soon in the app
That’s been in the app since at least November last year along with budgeting
Damn.
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Honestly, as much as I’d love to be wrong I don’t think they’ll ever come
I joined First Direct (for the switch offer at the time) in early 2021 and I’m 90% sure this was on the coming soon screen then, if not shortly after.
So it’s getting on for two and a half years now!
Rather stretching the definition of soon, in my opinion.
On the other hand, they do appear to be rolling out some new features (which were “coming soon” previously) so they may get around to it one day. I wouldn’t hold out any particular hope at this point though. Certainly the timeframe shared by the HSBC insider has totally gone out of the window.
Yes I remember that thread.
My suspicion is that development resource, shared between the two teams was pulled in the direction of HSBC. That’s because while FD got insights first, very little else has happened there while HSBC has had improvements to notifications, budgeting, plan and other app improvements.
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Hoping we see them this year!