Yes I did came by post today. First thought what a waste to the environment.
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Yeah, I received it too. Bizarre! Presumably made from the very trees they planted when people referred their friends 
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I’m a long-time supporter of Starling Bank and have long subscribed to the notion of them being the “grown-up” of the neo-banks.
To me, that led to a logical conclusion that their governance and protocols rendered my money safe. That was a box ticked with little extra thought.
This ongoing news thread around Starling’s approach to fraud, money-laundering and overall seeming lack of attention to detail does give me pause for thought.
I’m not in any way jumping ship, but I’m considering what steps I might take to feel more comfortable about my banking decisions.
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Just do what I do, Graham, and don’t read the articles 
I’m happy using Starling for my five free virtual cards 
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If I’m really honest, for me the bigger issue is not the regulatory lapse. Pretty much every bank has succumbed to that at some point, and I’m sure they all will once again.
The bigger issue is that the accounts are stagnant and uninteresting.
They have a good app - but that only gets you so far. So far as I can tell their big innovation in the time since I left has been a linked 4% easy access savings pot, which has no account details of its own and can only be transferred in to or out of manually. Not exactly the fintech dream…
Virtual cards is nice niche feature, the API access is market leading but incredibly niche.
Monzo at least have some premium accounts which are decent options (if you eat a lot of sausage rolls anyway…) and their cashback proposition is the tightest integration and the clearest offer of the like I’ve seen.
It’s hard to find a reason to recommend Starling right now.
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The thing is though, whilst you could say Monzo or Revolut are more ‘innovative’, most of what they offer over and above Starling are gimmicks. Yes, you can invest with Monzo now, but I would never, ever do that. I don’t want to be one of those who wakes up one morning to find my account closed and my investments gone too. Their premium accounts are next to useless to anyone who isn’t 23 and living on pasties.
Starling does the basics you would expect of a current account but then adds some nice to have features like paying from spaces and virtual cards.
My issue with them now isn’t what they offer, but how they are acting at the moment --the regulatory lapses, the way they are treating their staff, the removal of in-credit interest in favour of an inferior savings account etc…
The main one for me now though is that these app based banks rely solely on a very breakable, very stealable device to do anything. So, I’m back to a brick & mortar account and a spreadsheet, but I feel more secure that way.
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sure, you can steal my phone
any common thief doesn’t have the capability to break into my phone though lol
You’ve been able to invest via the Starling marketplace for years.
You can now change the name of your easy saver…
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Only if they let you open one 
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I have no idea what that’s about but I was able to open one myself.
Don’t understand what restrictions any bank would have on opening savings accounts. Doesn’t make any sense.
Also why have they only added the ability to rename it after release. It’s a glorified space. It could have had that from the beginning.
They are not treating it as a Space though.
Does not have the same capabilities.
There’s no reason it couldn’t have the same capabilities though. They didn’t have to give us the ability to rename it but they did.
I’m hoping it will end up pretty much like a space and you can have more than one.
Oh I agree. The ability to schedule deposits or withdrawals is crucial to its effectiveness, for me.
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You’re certainly not alone…
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I know, I’ve been with them since 2017, I was getting my salary paid in until Chase came along, and am equally sitting with credit score of 999/1000.
It actually has me thinking that they’re considering blocking my account so I’ve been changing from using them as my receiving account. In fact, had they not done this, I’d have been putting a large chunk of cash in for an upcoming mortgage application, but I’m worried that they’d choose that time to block it.
Why would they block your account? They most likely refused the easy access because of limited numbers. Nothing to do with your “credit score”, either.
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I don’t know why they would, and that’s the problem. If I’m in that mass of accounts getting reviewed, I just don’t have the trust that they wouldn’t, so I’m not going to use them to hold the mortgage deposit.
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I opened my Starling Easy Saver in November 2024, purely because I could tbh.
At just 4% and no ability to schedule transactions in or out of it, it has remained unused to this date.
Starling have sent me emails suggesting I should start using the account, however, none yet to suggest, that if I don’t use it, they will close it and allow another to open one.
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