After joining the community I came to know about many many Fintech banks like N26, starling, revolute etc…I know that most of the community belongs to UK and as I have lived their for few year I know that it is very competitive market and not like here in Canada where mostly few banks Dominates the market. I started to use ING(Tangerine) around 8 years bank as that was the kind of bigest online only bank and still with them and kind of happy with it as it serve it’s purpose.
As some of those Fintech is launching in Canada and some locals already here like stack and Koho, I would love to know how do you guys use this Fintech banks? How are they different from your bank?
For me the big benefit of Fintech banks over traditional banks is vastly superior visibility over spending. The one I use is Monzo. Features such as instant spending notifications, instant balance updating, rich transaction information (real merchant names rather than gobbledegook transaction codes, merchant logos, transaction maps, and transaction notes) and spending analytics all combine to make it much easier to maintain awareness and control of spending. Ever since I switched from mainly cash to mainly contactless (tap to pay) spending the above features have all been very important to me. However, if I was still mainly using cash I probably wouldn’t bother using a Fintech bank.
I still have some traditional banks for some features not available at Monzo (e.g. high interest regular savings account, ability to pay in cash and cheques in bank branches) but my Monzo account receives most of my salary and I consider it to be my main bank account.
I have accounts and credit cards at 4 traditional banks in addition to Monzo. So Emma has most value to me as an aggregator rather than an spending analyser or budgeting tool.
However, the augmentation I get of my credit card spending data through Emma is certainly useful in itself. Similar to with Monzo, I particularly like how Emma enables me to add notes to transactions.
As an international student I’ve taken great advantage of Revolut and have saved thousands of pounds by using them rather than the the traditional banks, or even TransferWise. Revolut has become my main bank as it is the bank where my pay check goes in and from where I pay my bills. While in the US, I use my Revolut card to pay for everything from groceries, broadband, electricity and rent. I’m also lucky enough to be able to pay my rent with Apple Pay.
Despite saving me thousands on exchange fees there are a few drawbacks by using Revolut. Although I can receive (some) local NOK payments, outgoing payments has to be sent by IBAN/SWIFT. Which means that although it is not impossible, it is hard for me to pay my local Norwegian bills from Revolut (phone and credit card). I would have to ask for the IBAN/SWIFT number instead of the local account number you are usually given. Also, although I have a local NOK account, it is not in my name. This means that I can’t receive my student loan or tax back directly to Revolut as they only pay out the money to an account in my name. In order for me to be able to close my traditional Norwegian acccount; The Revolut account would be in my name and Revolut would support local outgoing transfers. Until that happens, I will still have an account with a tradtional Norwegian bank.
The only reason why I have my bank account with Chase is that neither TransferWise or Revolut offers ACH-withdrawals which is required in order to for the bank to work with Venmo. Paying my tuition with an ACH-withdrawl is also free compared to the 4% cost it would be if I were to pay it with my card. Being able to deposit cash into my account and using the card with American iTunes Store is an added benefit, but one that can easily be avoided by just buying an iTunes Gift Card on sale add reducing the ammount of cash you have.
EDIT: As an added bonus being on the Revolut Metal-plan gives me 1% cashback on every purchase outside of Europe. When I pay for mostly everything in the US with my Revolut card, the cashback quickly adds up and the expense of the plan is quickly paid for.
I’m similar to @o99 in that I use monzo for every day. I recently got my card and it came within 24 hours and took around 10 minutes to set up whilst I was at work!
I like monzo because my main bank HSBC takes 2-3 days to show any transactions so I never really had any clarity around what I had spent, which then leads to more pointless spending.
I also get the train into work every day and here in London it takes around 1-2 days to be charged by TFL (transport for london) which means you never can keep track of what you have spent. Since I have started using monzo the transaction usually comes out the next day and it shows underneath which day I made that transaction so it’s easier to catch.
I use Emma mainly to keep track of 5-6 accounts but I love categorising everything and monitoring where I am spending most of my money so I can cut down. I just set budget for myself in Emma although its going to take me a bit of time to get used to those!
Transferwise (For US details mainly as my girlfriend is American)
Revolut for holding foreign currencies
Amex (not very Fintech but their app is pretty nice - instant notifications and all that Jazz) for all my GBP spend
Starling as my main account with DD’s going out
Freetrade for investments
Curve when I I’m spending on anything in GBP that isn’t through my Amex - as well when I’m abroad. I’ll still use my Amex for deposits but I’ll put some spending on my Aqua Rewards abroad using Curve
I have tried a lot but I don’t see many reason for using fintech bank apart from their fancy cards😜. I came up to three use for those,
-Instead of debit card( because of rewards)
-Free peer to peer transaction.( Not good until many people use it.)
-Forex transaction(To save transaction fees)
I am in Canada and using fintech from last 8 years name Tangerine(previously ING). Reason for that moving to that bank at that time was simple no fees bank account, Higher interest paying saving account, free peer to peer transfer and all online banking. I have used them as my main bank and never have to look for another for 99% of the things I do in banking. In credit card my go to card is Amex which provide high reward and real time transaction notification.
