It’s all subjective… I never liked Monzo’s approach or the look and feel of their app. Closed my account years ago. Chase looks OK, but I haven’t used it much.
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Yes, I use Chase for the cashback (though I’m certainly not wedded to that) and the rather more exciting 5.1% saver.
Much more importantly, though, I implicitly trust Starling to handle all income and provide me with a beat € solution for my twice-yearly trips to France, and I can see me returning to having them handle all my spending. I just trust them.
Of course. 
Whilst I still have a Monzo account, it isn’t currently being used. I find the interface to be a cluttered and confusing mess, mostly in service to its egregious monetisation.
I think the distinction between a legacy and a modern bank is that you can do everything you need to within the app, where a legacy bank still has paper processes or a need for a desktop browser. Starling by that metric is a modern bank.
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I think in a sense, it perhaps used to be that when the fintechs launched. But very few legacy banks still fit that mould. So I think there’s more nuance to the distinction than that. I think that’s probably a more fitting explanation of the differences between neobanks and traditional banks, but not all neobanks are fintechs (metro, first direct).
For me it goes back to the promise of the fintech revolution. What was happening in the US. Why these challenger banks came into existence in the first place. Starling, much like Atom, out of the original three just haven’t delivered on that promise long-term. Out of the regulated fintechs, Monzo is really the only one that has. And it’s why I tend to like them more. Chase is still a wait and see still, but in their short time being here, they’ve already evolved and improved the experience more than Starling ever has.
But what Starling settled into right out of the gate is really exactly the same as the legacy banks have been for decades. It just had a more modern app and features relative to them at the time, but that’s not as true now as it was then.
The emergence of fintech happened because banks were stagnant. They had neglected to evolve to meet the needs of emerging customers. And only ever moved when pushed. The regulator drove the vast majority of banking innovation.
Starling is fundamentally operating in that same paradigm. They haven’t evolved or improved the core foundation of its platform (or its app for that matter) to meet the ever-changing needs of customers. It’s probably why Monzo’s and Revolut’s growth are exponentially higher. It’s probably why Chase have caught them so quickly. If Starling wasn’t for you when it launched (and crikey, it was a disastrously flawed proposition then) it won’t be for you today, because nothing’s changed or gotten better from that day one experience. It’s exactly the same. And it’s underpinned by a lot of legacy bank thinking.
Now your needs might not be ever changing, and starling might meet them adequately, and that’s ok (for you). But that was also the exact same case with legacy banks in respect to our aging population.
Starling never met mine, and I’d always hope they would evolve to one day meet them (what fintech was originally about). And they haven’t. Which is why I’m critical. I hope they do. But they won’t if people don’t leave this kind of feedback.
I think the fact I’ve had a Starling account twice and ultimately closed it both times speaks volumes to how I ultimately feel, and demonstrates that frustration better than I could ever put into words. It’s the only fintech account I’ve ever noped out of to the point of closing. Twice. Because I’m confident it’s never going to improve to a point where I’ll regret it. Not like the dozens of folks who are now frustrated at not being able to rejoin Chase.
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I dumped Starling entirely because I was utterly bored with their app. A rubbish reason I agree, oh, and the of course the CASS bribe I got from whichever bank at the time I swapped too, could have been TSB or RBS, I’m not sure now as I subsequently ditched both of those for other CASS bribes. I am however now back with RBS albeit under their Holts arm with no CASS bribes involved! I’ve now well and truly burnt every CASS bribe bridge their is 
But back on track to Starling, I don’t miss them and I would never worry or care as to wether they’d have me back or not.
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I don’t love the starling app either, but I remain impressed that Starling have offered all the core banking features for so long now (overdrafts, cheque imaging, post office cash deposits, etc).
Were I ever to want to move away from Chase, I think I’d be headed for starling…
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My sole use for my Starling account is the virtual debit cards you can attach to their Spaces.
Each of my kids have a Space and a virtual debit card. Allows me to assist from afar with various purchases, and where they then don’t need to use their own debit card whose number won’t change.
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I very much doubt the account opening restrictions are a result of financial distress. It doesn’t scan that they’d be fine taking completely new customers on but not returning/existing ones.
A more realistic possibility could be that some unwanted behaviour was discovered to be possible, and it’s sufficiently low enough a priority that it’s better just to close the door for a bit until resource is allocated to solving the problem.
Either that or they’re adjusting their (very reasonable) policies on rejoiners and are using the temporary pause as a bit of cover.
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Starling Bank’s SaaS business can be bigger than the bank, says its boss
https://tech.eu/2024/04/29/engine-can-be-bigger-than-starling-says-boss-but-he-has-no-ambitoins/
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Is this so called Engine like a whitelabel of a banking app/solution?
Basically, yes. Starling allows others to build on top of their infrastructure -
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Wonder if we’ll see either or both of Nationwide/Virgin and Coventry/Co-op moving to that?
They’ve been saying since January they’re expecting to reopen applications ‘‘very soon’’ It seems their definition drastically differs to everyone else’s. I can’t seem them ever reopening to old customers now after this length of time.
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Stuff takes longer than expected. It happens.
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It’s ridiculous. Whatever the reason for it (the same thing that happened to another fintech, or the more likely unfounded explanation), it leaves no good impression. It’s either bad, embarrassing, or both. Or worse. In any case, it erodes confidence in them as a bank.
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Good to see Starling now show upcoming standing orders as well as direct debits now
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Pretty sure I’ve seen that in action for some time. But, nonetheless, good to have.
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Direct debit have always shown ahead but standing orders haven’t as didn’t last month but have this month
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