Ironically I tried to close my TSB account on Saturday morning because I'd just switched to Monzo Bank and was told they couldn't close my account due to the issues they were having.
Still no access to my old account this morning...
Still no access to my old account this morning...
I am most definitely joining them (but keeping my "main" bank)
As for the TSB, it would be interesting to see what went wrong and how they fixed it.
This seems to be a very common pattern, and I wonder if they are having issues because of it. I was a Monzo early adopter and even I haven't moved over entirely.
I think a lot of users _liked_ the prepaid cards, to help them budget spending money, etc. I suspect that a lot of people haven't upgraded to a full bank account with them as a result.
Basically you can put money in your account into separately named isolated areas in your account that can't be spent using your card normally. In layman's terms as many saving accounts as you want with more flexibility.
You can still kind of use it as a prepaid card by just topping it up from your bank when you want. It's just better as you can now use Android Pay etc. and have proper banking functions like having an actual sort number/account number, direct debits, standing orders etc.
My Amex is linked and I get a notification of all purchases as they go through regardless of whether I use my phone or card.
If it fails because of a failed upgrade, hacker attack, AWS not being available, etc... what is your plan B ?
Apart from that they're both much the same, and both leagues better than a normal bank. It's amazing buying stuff or getting cash out and the notification comes through on the phone before the ATM tells you the cash is coming!
Another good thing both have - you can switch off cards instantly. I thought i'd lost my Starling card when out last week, instead of cancelling it I just temporarily halted it until it was found.
What I do love about Monzo is their approach to development - they blog everything, even the outages. Good to see the process involved in making a new bank from scratch. I'm keeping the account as a scratch account but have already moved the direct debits from my old Halifax account to Starling.