6 ms·
In the UK the fintech (Financial Tech) scene is becoming more prevalent, for the better. Recently I switched to a new online-only bank called Monzo. It's fully
by benbristow 8y ago
In the UK the fintech (Financial Tech) scene is becoming more prevalent, for the better.
Recently I switched to a new online-only bank called Monzo. It's fully licensed and all accounts are insured up to a certain amount by the UK government. It's great. They're in the top charts for apps in the UK now on the iOS App Store. There's a few other alternatives like Starling Bank and Revolut too.
They're very good. They're open about their tech stack with developer blogs and it's a modern stack which lets them iterate in a quick and agile manner unlike the legacy banks.
You get push notifications on every payment (usually you get the notification before the payment has even processed on the vendor's end!). Tells you exactly how much you've been spending every day.
They've got RESTful JSON APIs you can integrate with if you want to and they also have the option in the app to easily export your data into CSV or Quickbooks format. They even have IFTTT integration.
Really makes you manage your money better.
- kqr 8y agoThis is, on one hand, great. I made the switch to a similar bank myself a few years back. What I failed to realise at the time was how exposed I became to the vulnerabilities associated with being cashless. Cash is not just an ancient relic. Cash is an ancient relic and a fundamental component of a free society. My country has, in practise, become nearly cashless and I used to be proud to be one of the very early adopters of that mindset. Now I lament how hard it is to deal in cash. I am planning to switch to the only bank left in my country still providing personal cash services. The only one. That should be scary, not relieving.
- fastball 8y agoI guess that's the target for anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero and ZCash?
- kqr 8y agoI'm skeptical of any tender that is rendered worthless by something as simple and common as an electrical outage.
- yacn 8y agofine. bottle caps it is.
- VonGallifrey 8y agoAnd by "electrical outage" you mean more of a end of the world scenario? Because a normal electrical outage is not going to make your Monero worthless. It will have the exact same value before, during and after the outage. You need electricity to use Monero, but that can be also said about any credit or debit card.
- kqr 8y agoI mean that I can promise to the merchant that I have monero I intend to pay them with but unless I can provide proof of this intention, by producing e.g. an IOU -- which will serve a purpose suspiciously similar to an official bank note -- they are worthless in the moments transaction.
- VonGallifrey 8y agoWhat you are describing is also a limitation of Credit Cards and Apple Pay and Google Wallet. That does not make these things worthless either. Just wait a minute until power is restored. Or pay in cash off course, but that only works if you remembered to go to an ATM first and that ATM had power. Off course you could also write an IOU to the merchant about the amount of government IOUs that you will withdraw later. I guess that means that your bank notes are worthless in the moments transaction if they are stored in a bank?
- spuz 8y agoCould you elaborate on the risks of not using cash for you?
- germainelol 8y agoI guess ending up in a situation where you need cash to pay for something.
- benbristow 8y agoThat's what ATMs are for
- mandelbrotwurst 8y agoTransaction fees, tracking, reliance on third-party controlled network that could go down or decide to exclude you.
- kqr 8y agoI always phrase this badly the first time around. I don't mind not using cash. I mind when I don't even have the option to use cash.
- matthewmacleod 8y agoWhat do you mean by "personal cash services"? A new-ish bank like Monzo mentioned above still allows you to withdraw cash like any other bank. You can't yet pay it into the account, but my understanding is that this will be provided pretty soon (based on their public roadmap https://trello.com/c/k2zy6WyU/98-cash-deposits- https://trello.com/c/k2zy6WyU/98-cash-deposits-) Cash is important, but I don't think it's going away any time soon.
- branchless 8y agoDo they resell my data?
- sitepodmatt 8y agoRevolut are a nightmare. After using it for several months and fully verified I apparently entered a CVV incorrectly on one transaction. Revolut blocked the card but with no notification, and no inapp indicators, all showed normal in app, all toggled enabled for maximum flexibility. It took ages to figure out, but swiping the card or using online was now returning to the merchant 'FRAUD/STOLEN' marker rather than just insufficient funds, this lead to Ayden blocking me from merchants and other hell. Best of all support kept telling me my account was fine and all enabled, it was only after Twitter escalation I learnt about a backend block their support staff couldn't see. Ridiculous, weeks to sort, dozens of tickets, suggestion to train support staff or provide in app indicator of block was ignored.This shit still happens today, avoid Revolut. Fintech can be rough, it ain't all great, tread carefully. Oh and they delete feedback from forums if not positive lol
- toomuchtodo 8y agoThank you so much for posting this. Kept waiting for my Revolut invite, but now I know to steer clear.
- thecupisblue 8y agoTbh I've been using Revolut for like 2 years now if not longer. Saved my ass whenever I was traveling, helps with geoblocked services, virtual cards are great and I can uses it with Google Pay. Never had a single problem.
- germainelol 8y agoNo bad experiences so far with Revolut, but will admit the customer support is pretty terrible. I had to enquire to the CS team about the top-up limit and ended up getting all of my answers from forums instead of the CS team.
- kennydude 8y agoI've done this with Monzo and you get a push notification saying "Declined at XYZ". They seem to know what they're doing at least
- 8y ago
- onion2k 8y agoThe CEO of Monzo used to post here on HN quite a lot. He also founded GoCardless. Very smart guy. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tomblomfield https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tomblomfield