Anyone share Starlingbank experiences?

[anonymous-user]

Hey Everyone,

Just looking for a bit of advice before I potentially jump over to Starling bank. I am leaving Barclays because of their attitude to small business, esp these last few days. I was wondering what small business users thing to it.

All I want to do is:

Take payments in USD and GBP by bank transfer

Pay bills by DD and the occassional one by bank transfer

I dont want/need any finance, loans, overdraughts etc. Always in credit.

Although I do have an "account manager" I dont think I have spoken to her since I opened the account With the exception of the USD payments I don't think my business banking could be any simpler.

Experiences?

[V8mate]

I have a Starling personal account and have also added a Euro account to it as I subscribe to some German services.

The app allows me to send/receive/switch etc cash across these two accounts utterly seamlessly, and the fees are so low as to be irrelevant.

They win many awards for their business banking - and its ability to link to your business accounting software - so on the basis of my personal account experience, I'd say that they are a good place for multi-currency business.

[skwdenyer]

ChocyLint1 said:

Hey Everyone,

Just looking for a bit of advice before I potentially jump over to Starling bank. I am leaving Barclays because of their attitude to small business, esp these last few days. I was wondering what small business users thing to it.

All I want to do is:

Take payments in USD and GBP by bank transfer

Pay bills by DD and the occassional one by bank transfer

I dont want/need any finance, loans, overdraughts etc. Always in credit.

Although I do have an "account manager" I dont think I have spoken to her since I opened the account With the exception of the USD payments I don't think my business banking could be any simpler.

Experiences?

I bank with Starling, business and personal. Pretty excellent so far. I had a problem the other day with my card being declined (wasn't Starling's fault - vendor was using a PayPal terminal that had problems). I pinged them a live message, got a call back within minutes - this was close to midnight.

The app is great, the notifications of upcoming payments are very helpful, and so on. Everything in fact that most banks just aren't in my experience

I can't speak to USD I'm afraid. I also have a Tide account, and I set up a USD account with them when I needed one. That took a little while, primarily because they don't have a banking licence so you have to apply to them, they have to apply to their clearer, etc. But it did come through in the end.

[drmike37]

I swapped to Starling a few months ago. Totally painless. App seems pretty comprehensive.

[anonymous-user]

Not sure about Starling but TransferWise offer a business account with a UK sort code and account number, can accept payments in any currency. You may even be able to get a USD account number with them too. Been using them a month and so far so good. Comes with a debit card. You can set up direct debits etc too.

[skwdenyer]

CDB1983 said:

Not sure about Starling but TransferWise offer a business account with a UK sort code and account number, can accept payments in any currency. You may even be able to get a USD account number with them too. Been using them a month and so far so good. Comes with a debit card. You can set up direct debits etc too.

Do they have a banking licence and / or FSCS cover?

[Grimupnorth]

I am pretty happy with Starling.

Latest information I can find is that they recommend Transferwise for USD payments.
There is nothing in the app to open a US account.

So if you need to hold USD it's probably not ideal.
Transferwise not in FSCS

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the input everyone.

When I said about taking payment in USD I was more meaning the ability for them to pay into my account, rather than $ showing up. Someone on the thread said all banks offer this so it is good to know.

I'll go ahead and go with them and see what they are like!

Cheers!

[Grimupnorth]

ChocyLint1 said:

Thanks for the input everyone.

When I said about taking payment in USD I was more meaning the ability for them to pay into my account, rather than $ showing up. Someone on the thread said all banks offer this so it is good to know.

I'll go ahead and go with them and see what they are like!

Cheers!

You will need transferwise to accept USD.

[V8mate]

Grimupnorth said:

ChocyLint1 said:

Thanks for the input everyone.

When I said about taking payment in USD I was more meaning the ability for them to pay into my account, rather than $ showing up. Someone on the thread said all banks offer this so it is good to know.

I'll go ahead and go with them and see what they are like!

Cheers!

You will need transferwise to accept USD.

https://transferwise.com/gb/blog/starling-business...

[Tebbers]

Just like the OP we switched from Barclays to Starling due to their appalling service. They couldn’t even get text message notifications working for months.

Couldn’t be happier with the move and some of our directors have also moved their other business accounts to Starling too.

[buggalugs]

I changed my business current account from RBS to Starling a few months ago. No complaints.

[buggalugs]

I changed my business current account from RBS to Starling a few months ago. No complaints.

[megaphone]

After some advice on here I went for a Starling business account, so far so good. I like the instant messaging when a payment comes in or goes out, even works on your debit card. Not really used it for much else yet and only in just over a month, but am pleased so far.

[Z4MCSL]

I use Starling for business, not got anything to compare it against but all seems really straightforward and user friendly. The support is really pretty good too