Pre paid Cards

[Seve7n]

Hi all,
Yes I know this has been asked 1,000,000 times... is a 1,000,001 going to hurt ? ... 🤪

Excluding the Clarity Card, what’s your opinions on Monzo / Starling / Revolut ?

I have just got a Starling card, but from what I have recently been reading, on here, Revoult appears to be the more popular one to have ?

Once again, any feedback is greatly appreciated from a newbie.

Thanks

[sam7]

I used revolut for the first time when I went in 2018, I loved it (before used to use traveller cheque or cash). It was easy to understand the app. Can literally load it as I walk down the road, can convert to foreign currency whenever the rate is good (or leave it is pounds and it will use that days exchange rate) - their rates always appeared better than others. You get an almost immediate notification to your phone of any transactions. You get a daily update of all spends - excellent for budgeting. You can turn off some or all of the features via the app (turn off the whole card), you can transfer money to other revolut users very easily (DH and I both opened separate accounts, so if we lost one card we could transfer the money to each other.
I loved it so much I still use it for all of my contactless payments in UK

[Thelostprincess]

I recommend revolut too. Easy to use and the app is good. I've not used it in America but have used it abroad and had no problems!

[dil2373]

Another vote for Revolut easy to use and excellent exchange rate

[the_em0hawk]

Isn't the difference here that Monzo and Starling are actually full-blown current accounts, whereas Revolut is a pre-paid debit card?
I'm a Monzo customer, have been for about 18 months now. I checked into the fees for use abroad and for card transactions there's no fee and no markup on the exchange rate (they use the Mastercard rate on the day of the transaction). I'll be using my Monzo card and a Clarity card for our trip.
One other feature of Monzo is that if you use Google Pay and loose the card you can continue using Google Pay while waiting for a replacement card (I believe the new card is automatically added to the G Pay account when you order a new card), which could be useful abroad.

[Seve7n]

Originally Posted by the_em0hawk

Isn't the difference here that Monzo and Starling are actually full-blown current accounts, whereas Revolut is a pre-paid debit card?
I'm a Monzo customer, have been for about 18 months now. I checked into the fees for use abroad and for card transactions there's no fee and no markup on the exchange rate (they use the Mastercard rate on the day of the transaction). I'll be using my Monzo card and a Clarity card for our trip.
One other feature of Monzo is that if you use Google Pay and loose the card you can continue using Google Pay while waiting for a replacement card (I believe the new card is automatically added to the G Pay account when you order a new card), which could be useful abroad.

See more...

I hope it’s not a current account 🤦
Not that it matters that much...

[the_em0hawk]

Originally Posted by Seve7n

I hope it’s not a current account 🤦
Not that it matters that much...

See more...

I can assure you that Monzo is a proper current account. They started off as prepaid debit cards before they got their UK banking license, but haven't offered those cards for a couple of years now. There's nothing to stop anyone using Monzo/Starling as a second bank account though, I had my account running alongside an HSBC account for about 9 months until I decided to switch to Monzo as my main current account.

Starling I'm not so sure about as I don't bank with them, but pretty sure they followed the same path as Monzo in moving from pre-paid debit cards to full blown bank accounts. I've not looked to see if they still offer the old product.

[Sew109]

Originally Posted by Seve7n

I hope it’s not a current account 🤦
Not that it matters that much...

See more...

Why would you hope that ?

Monzo is fantastic and cheap used it for 3 years

[Seve7n]

Originally Posted by Sew109

Why would you hope that ?

Monzo is fantastic and cheap used it for 3 years

See more...

Originally thought the amount of bank accounts you hold may affect your credit rating etc.
After commenting, I checked google, and it appears my initial thought is incorrect. So no dramas , ha.

[galaxyflorida]

Revolut is a prepaid card but Starling and Monzo are both current accounts.

Starling and Monzo both have full financial protections but Revolut doesn't.

With Revolut you can lock in an exchange rate so all the money on your card is stored in dollars. With Starling and Monzo the exchange rate is used at the time of each transaction