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Random question, but I'm moving to London in a few months, do you have any suggestions on banks or "challenger" banks I should go with? (couldn't figure out how

• jonathanbull 7y ago
  I highly recommend Monzo.
• Nursie 7y ago
  Monzo and Starling are the big two challengers, and worth a look.
• Shoue 7y ago
  Both Monzo and Starling are good. If you're good at budgeting and never dip into negative balances I suggest getting a cashback or points credit card too, and then you can simply put your income into an instant savings account until you need it for the monthly direct debit to pay off your credit card and earn interest _and_ cashback/points.
  • Nextgrid 7y ago
    Cashback is very low in Europe (thankfully) due to the interchange fees being capped by law. Frankly even in the US I personally wouldn’t bother using credit cards. The management overhead of maintaining one (you have to pay it off on time, have 2 balances to look at, etc) is IMO not worth the money.
    • fredophile 7y ago
      A credit card that pays 2% back on all purchases is pretty easy to get in the US. Since cashback isn't taxed this is close to 3% in pre-tax dollars. If having a balance on the card and money in the bank is too confusing you could just pay it daily on days that you use it. I'd say the minimal effort is worth the reward in this case.
      • Nextgrid 7y ago
        > pay it daily Unless I can automate this it’s still an extra step I can’t be bothered to do.
        • smabie 7y ago
          And you get to invest the money in the mean time. If you manage to get a bunch of cards you can just roll over your credit and earn bond or equity returns on the deferred payment. It’s totally worth it, you can make thousands of extra dollars this way.
    • pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      In the UK you get additional purchase protection when you pay by credit card, which can be useful on larger purchases - lots of people have been saved by this when companies have folded. https://www.moneysupermarket.com/credit-cards/guide-to-credit-card-protection/ https://www.moneysupermarket.com/credit-cards/guide-to-credi...
    • lmm 7y ago
      What management overhead do you have to do? Set up a direct debit to pay off the balance in full every month (and set it to happen on the same day as your other bills, shortly after your paycheque comes in). Pay everything on the credit card, so that that's the only balance you have to check. Get on with your life, and enjoy either cashback or the occasional free flight.
• LinusU 7y ago
  I've been using Monese since I moved here ~2.5 years ago. It was great as I was able to open the account in the weeks _before_ moving over, and thus already had a ready to go payment card & UK Bank Account when I arrived!
  • wikibob 7y ago
    Monese is not a bank. They are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (Equivalent to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation FDIC in the USA). They are an "Authorised Electronic Money Institution" like PayPal. If they go bankrupt, you will lose all your money. https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=0010X00004QChyhQAD https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=0010X000... I'd strongly recommend you open a real banking account.
    • LinusU 7y ago
      Hmm, good to know! According to their site 100% of my funds should be covered since they are required to hold any client funds in a separate account which they cannot use for anything at all. https://support.monese.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002002229-Is-Monese-covered-by-a-Deposit-Guarantee-Scheme- https://support.monese.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002002229-Is... Not sure what the implications are with that vs being a "real bank"
    • weddpros 7y ago
      "If they go bankrupt, you will lose all your money " is not entirely true, according to Monese's FAQ: https://support.monese.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002002229-Is-Monese-covered-by-a-Deposit-Guarantee-Scheme- https://support.monese.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002002229-Is... "Unlike banks we do not re-invest customer funds and have to keep all customer money separate to our own company finances. We are required by Regulation to Safeguard all funds received from Monese customers. This guarantees that even in the unlikely event that Monese is no longer in business, all of our customers would receive 100% of their balance back"
      • growse 7y ago
• toyg 7y ago
  Starling.
  • nullandvoid 7y ago
    No card alias support at the minute they are trailing behind there
    • Nextgrid 7y ago
      Curious, what’s card alias?
      • insomniacity 7y ago
        Well this thread is now the top Google result for 'uk bank "card alias"', so if it wasn't a thing before, it is now!
      • mynameisvlad 7y ago
        I'm guessing they're referring to having virtual cards you can use for one transaction or merchant, and which you can kill at any time without having to change your primary card number.
        • nullandvoid 7y ago
          Virtual cards.. sorry had forgot the name at the time thought the card alias term would be obvious haha
    • toyg 7y ago
      Depends. At least your money is actually protected by UK laws. Unlike, say, Revolut. No idea about Monzo.
• eat_veggies 7y ago
  I got my paycheck paid into my monzo. They don't require a proof of address, so I was able to open an account from my hotel room and have my card sent to my new workplace before I had my own flat.
  • user5994461 7y ago
    +1 Monzo doesn't ask for proof of address, while other banks will need something like a utility bill. As a newcomer to the UK, one is pretty much obliged to open a bank account with Monzo.
    • easytiger 7y ago
      How is that legal under KYC laws etc?
      • growse 7y ago
        I'm a little rusty on this, so some details may not be correct. My understanding is that UK KYC basically don't specify exactly how to validate an individual's identity, only that the bank should do that (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/identity-proofing-and-verification-of-an-individual https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/identity-proofing...). It does suggest that a person's identity is "often someone’s name, date of birth and address", but it doesn't seem to mandate that. I believe the requirement for banks to hold addresses is actually an AML requirement, and this only comes into effect for larger or riskier transactions. In a sense, the requirement to have a "provable address" just to open a basic bank account becomes quite problematic when you consider there are people who don't have fixed addresses. Whats worse, you discover that most of the ways in which you can get a fixed address require you to have a bank account (e.g. renting a place to live). It's an entirely unnecessary chicken-and-egg scenario caused by the insistence of the older banks on collecting proof of address, which they didn't technically need to do.
        • Matsta 7y ago
          Yes, you are correct, you only really need proof of address once you start offering credit (running hard credit check). And you're also correct in terms of AML - once a person crosses over a certain threshold or raises and risk alarms, they'll be required run further AML checks. Eg. if you were to signup to Monzo and then put 50 grand in there from a foreign account. What Monzo has to do since they are new, is keep a squeaky clean record with the authorities. This is why Monzo usually blocks or even bans anyone that buys Cryptocurrency eg: https://www.reddit.com/r/monzo/comments/avdw8o/notice_regarding_cryptocurrency_trading/ https://www.reddit.com/r/monzo/comments/avdw8o/notice_regard... Source: I work in Crypto
• wikibob 7y ago
  100% Monzo. https://monzo.com/blog/technology https://monzo.com/blog/technology Also check out all the awesome tech meetups they host at their new office. There's a very strong and small open source 'cloud' tech community in London where everyone knows everyone. Try hard to meet some people and before you know it you'll have a new group of friends.
  • Nextgrid 7y ago
    Kind of disagree. I was a huge Monzo fan, converted dozens of friends to it and was one of the first ones to get their beta current account (which I immediately started using as my main and only account despite it being in beta). Nowadays however they seem to have trouble making profit, but instead of focusing on their existing customers they pour money into more marketing even though they can’t actually support all of them and now customer service response times are measured in days. They feel like a bullshit social media company with no real (aka profitable where people are happy to pay for it) product and are just trying to inflate their customer numbers no matter what. Now I bank with Starling. They aren’t as “nice” as Monzo used to be but are definitely a lot better than the current Monzo both in terms of support and UI (Monzo redesigned their UI and it’s a shit-show now). They also offer business and Euro accounts if needed.
    • ubercow13 7y ago
      If you think Monzo isn't profitable, what makes you think Starling would be? They have basically the same product except with more expensive (for them) incentives.
      • Nextgrid 7y ago
        Starling has other sources of income like their enterprise services which allow businesses to connect to the Faster Payments network: https://www.starlingbank.com/paymentservices/ https://www.starlingbank.com/paymentservices/ In addition they have business accounts which don’t have any of the costly features like interest, free cash deposits, etc so they’re profitable for Starling as they profit off the interest (especially relevant for business accounts as they might hold high balances keeping money aside for taxes and VAT) without giving out many costly features like cash deposits (the only overhead there is support and foreign ATM withdrawals).
• walshemj 7y ago
  Asuming your from outside the UK Id also open a second backup account with one of the high street banks Satandares fairly good on rates and Nationwide has a pretty good Cash ISA Longer term I would go for ii if you want to get into Shares ISA's
• alibarber 7y ago
  Transferwise's borderless account might also be worth a look too if you need to hold or regularly spend money in other currencies. I've moved the opposite way and have been quite happy with it.
  • riffraff 7y ago
    Does TW have a banking license? I seem to recall they don't, so your money wouldn't be insured in the same way, or something like that.
    • alibarber 7y ago
      True - I don't think so. There are regulatory assurances that they ringfence the money and you should be able to get it all back should they go under, but yeah I would be wary of using them as the only place to keep my money or substantial sums. They are super useful for receiving and sending money to/from different countries though, reasonabble fees.
      • riffraff 7y ago
        they absolutely are, I've used it for something like 6 or 7 years, and have had almost zero issues. I even paid for my wedding celebrations with transferwise-moved money :)
    • matthewheath 7y ago
      If TransferWise were to fail, you would not be entitled to compensation (up to £85,000) from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) — this is a scheme that banks and building societies authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority sign up to and fund. TransferWise is only registered with the Prudential Regulation Authority as an e-money service authorised to provide payment services. You can search the register at https://register.fca.org.uk https://register.fca.org.uk. In reality, they appear to hold the funds with Barclays so if TransferWise failed, you'd get the funds back. It's only if Barclays themselves became insolvent that you'd be out of pocket since you wouldn't be covered by the FSCS.
    • deleted 7y ago
• twic 7y ago
  Looking more broadly than just challenger banks: https://www.which.co.uk/money/banking/bank-accounts/best-and-worst-banks-a3q5d8c6dj7y https://www.which.co.uk/money/banking/bank-accounts/best-and... Top of the list (as it often has been for decades) is First Direct. This is a challenger bank in its own way - it was launched in 1989 to pioneer telephone banking, a disruptive technology at the time! It now has phone and internet banking, but still has no physical branches. Monzo and Starling, the proper challenger banks, are also rated very highly, taking the second and third spots. Behind them are some somewhat unconventional banks: Nationwide is a building society rather than a bank; functionally it's a bank, but it's owned by its customers, rather than by investors. Dates to the 19th century, has many branches, very boring really. My mum banks with them, and she doesn't complain. Marks & Spencer is an upmarket department store (i swear by their lambswool socks!) which branched out into banking a while ago. Metro Bank is a perfectly normal high street bank, with branches and so on, but it was founded in 2010. Apparently the last time a new bank was founded before that was 150 years earlier. The Co-operative Bank is, as the name suggests, a co-operative. It's a bit like a building society, but not. I bank with them. Their website is terrible and their phone customer service has been slashed (although when you do get through to someone, they're great). Only then do you get to Barclays, which is a classic high street bank - founded in the 17th century, branches in every town, full service, investment banking arm, rigs LIBOR, etc.
  • razakel 7y ago
    >The Co-operative Bank is, as the name suggests, a co-operative. It's no longer a co-op and its relationship with the Co-Operative Group will end later this year.
    • notahacker 7y ago
      True, it's only minority-owned by the Cooperative Group, though it does supposedly now also recognise the influence of an independently-founded customer cooperative on its ethical policy. [any fintech enthusiasts trying to think of a challenger bank niche the UK hasn't already got multiple heavily-marketed competing alternatives in might like to go down the ethics route...]
• corford 7y ago
  I'd strongly recommend having two: Nationwide as your base and a challenger for international wires/multi currency (I use revolut but there are lots of others).
  • Matsta 7y ago
    I use Monzo as my main account but I have got a Nationwide Flex Plus account which gives you really good phone, travel and breakdown insurance for £13/month
• qubex 7y ago
  Revolut
  • distances 7y ago
    Revolut has acquired quite some infamy due to their employee/applicant treatment. Not sure I'd want to keep my money with them
  • AdamGibbins 7y ago
    Revolut are not a bank, they're not operating as one and are not regulated as one, so do not get FSCS protection. They hold a banking license with Lithuania, however are not actually issuing accounts under it - and if you read about Lithuania's banking system its all rather Iceland like and I don't have high confidence in it. I would not store my money with them.