Whats the best bank to run alongside Monzo for emergencies or just to have as a fallback for when things go wrong. Do banks get irritated by customers having a dormant account?
By best i mean feature wise and similarity (Except Starling of course).
I have standing orders set up for 1p from my Starling account to all of my unused accounts with other banks every month to keep them marked as āactiveā. Havenāt had any dormancy issues yet? 
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Itās pretty much the same for me. I count Triodos as my main acount, but Iāve been a bit of a fintech addict too and it would be hard to restrict myself to just one account.
The only real difference youād notice with Triodos is that Faster Payments might take two hours. (Iām old enough to remember transfers taking days!) On the plus side, card transactions appear instantly in mobile banking and you can get SMS instant notifications if you want.
If I really need or want to use Apple Pay I just route it through Curve.
I use YNAB for budgeting so all those new fangled fintech āspacesā and āpotsā that get others very excited are just an annoyance to me. Triodos doesnāt have anything like that.
Where they really do fall down is in Open Banking though I canāt honestly work out whether itās Triodos whose API doesnt work or the providers who canāt be bothered with Triodos. It means for me that Triodos transactions have to entered manually into YNAB, where Starling (or suchlike) just need to be matched and reconciled.
In the end, Iām a joiner and I have the things I want to be associated withā¦ politics, charities and causes. Iād love to see a more competitive ecosystem of smaller providers with space for ethical and mututal organisations such as community banks. Using Triodos is a small gesture in that direction. Some people will be more price sensitive but to me Ā£3 is a very cheap fee for a fairly decent and humane banking service.
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RBS for pay, main/joint bills and any large transfers
Revolut for x3 personal bills and pretty much all my spending at the moment
Monzo have been sidelined of late. Only thing I miss, pending direct credits/debits
That seems like a dealbreaker to me, honestly. Itās an account with no attractions, other than the ethical angle, to be blunt.
There is no interest, no favourable allowances on cash withdrawals or spending abroad, etc. No ability to pay in cash at all. No ability to use the post office. Cheque imaging is totally out of the question. No Apple Pay. No notifications (SMS donāt count). No Open Banking. Even faster payments take hours (yikes)!
Iām used to these modern niceties and if I had to cope without them I could, but I also wouldnāt choose to forgo them.
To add insult to injury, in a way, you are then asked to pay for what amounts to an extremely basic account with no perks at all.
Paying a fee for peace of mine to āavoid feesā doesnāt sit right with me, especially when Iām paying no fees that Iām not recouping at my other banks. Itās not for me. And yes, I know Iām exactly the kind of freeloader that the vulnerable overcharged customers are paying for, but then so are most people and itās the way the business model is set up in this country. I doubt Triodos will change that, as the current situation sadly benefits the majority at the massive expensive of the minority.
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Go for the special Child & Co sortcode!
15-80-00
Yep, Iām afraid Iāve always come to the same conclusion with Triodos. The ethical angle is totally fair enough, and Iād see paying a fee for a more moral business model a valid offering if it didnāt also buy you the privilege of having seriously handicapped features compared to even the most legacy of old fashioned banks. I mean lack of Apple Pay is bad enough in 2021, but two hours for faster payments - that really is a joke!
Iāve only encountered two banks that arenāt instant (Co-op and Tesco) and it put me off using them.
When I say not instant here, I mean that payments take between 2 and 30 minutes to arrive. Nowhere near as bad as Triodosās two hours, which I would actually consider unusable.
I set up yesterday and wasnāt given an option for this!
Mind you I have absolutely no idea whatās going on, I did the id uploads and then the process stops and havenāt heard anything since!
This always makes me amused.
The guarantee is payment is made within 1 working day. Yes near instant payments are mostly seen as the normal.
Most banks commit to 2 hours. Think itās still quite quick.
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This is so true. Monzo try to do the same, to an extent, with their āsmall and transparentā fees, and I never got it. Iāve never paid a fee for my banking in the UK (except for things like blue rewards, where I still get a net benefit).
And paying for an account that has arguably less/worse āfeaturesā than its free competitors quite frankly seems totally ridiculous to meā¦
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I feel the same way about Triodos as I do about carbon offsetting. Itās been made up so that people can pay a convenient fee to feel good, but does nothing more. Without full transparency you canāt actually be sure that your money is spent as they promise and that there is no (wanted or unwanted) negative impact. So I just choose not to do it
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To be fair to them, the ethical angle is the entire point of the bank existing - they donāt really make any other claims.
I think youāll probably struggle to find a bank that is more transparent than Triodos in terms of where the money is going. Itās possible that theyāre lying but at some point you do need to trust what youāre being told, otherwise youāre going to have a bad time in life trusting nothing at all.
Iād disagree that ethical banking is the same as carbon offsetting - choosing not to allow your money (or profit made from you) to go to an organisation that may then invest that money in activities you consider undesirable is a direct way of removing money from those activities and making them less able to operate. Carbon offsetting is continuing to pay money in to an industry, allowing them to profit, and then paying an additional fee to hope the bad goes away. Due to the sums of money involved people making the former choice may not make much practical difference, just like choosing not to buy a mobile phone plan from Vodafone isnāt going to cause them to go bust, but it is a valid choice and allows people to choose what industries their money is supporting.
As I think I said in another thread, Triodos is definitely a niche bank and I think they always will be - and thatās fine, it is always good to have more options in the market. It is not going to be the right bank for most people.
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You can choose the sort code?!
I donāt think you can anymore. RBS have removed the Sort Code chooser from their application
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No, I signed up yesterday, no choice at all
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This stuff makes me want it even more now!
Thereās a recent MSE thread where someone said they were allowed to pick a sort code recently, and someone else who said they werenāt. Not sure what it is!
Try signing up and let us know how it goes? 
I totally would but 1) I donāt want an RBS account unless itās Child & Co branded and 2) it would just sit dormant anyway
Perhaps a mobile vs website thing?
Could be ā someone was talking about a pop-up branch selector. How did you sign up, @anon55596034 ?
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