The most frequent use I make of the Barclay's app is to top-up my Monzo card. The Monzo app (and Revolut, but for some reason I use Monzo more than my Revolut) is just better. It is more focussed on my daily use and has a more pleasant interface. It does not do as much as my Barcaly's account but it does the 95% most frequent banking activities a lot easier.

Barclays on Android doesn't use Google Pay, it's fucking annoying. Their contactless implementation is appauling, frequently doesn't work, I wish they'd just give up and use Google Pay. I'm personally moving everything over to Nationwide, I like their ethics and business structure. :)

The Barclays app is fantastic, and very fully featured, but it’s fundamentally a port of a web banking experience with the UX of a team of UX experts who think they know how iOS apps should work better than Apple.

The Monzo iOS app is a completely mobile first rethink of banking. From the live nature of the balance, to the in-app chat (which works very well). On top of that, they don’t reimplement iOS conventions.

There’s a lot that could be improved about the Monzo iOS app. The whole service lacks features compared to Barclays (but, 450 vs 150k people, obviously), but it is still a step change in mobile banking.

I don't use Monzo but the big benefits tend to be -

- Low or no fee usage abroad - Real time transaction notifications on your phone. - Transactions showing immediately on the account. - Automatic categorising of transactions. I.e you can see what you spent in restaurants, shops, public transport etc. Monzo also let's you set budgets for individual categories. - Automatic saving. I.e. Chip monitors your account and takes moves what it thinks you don't need to a savings account. - Ability to freeze the card in app (if say you lost it).

Anyone want to comment on the disadvantages?

Off the top of my head I know they don't have branches so you can't speak to someone face-to-face like you might with a traditional bank. Is online/telephone support generally good with these challenger banks? Are there any other negatives I should be aware of if I sign up?

If I deposited a large sum of money into my account would I have all the regular protections of a traditional bank or are there additional risks associated with these small challenger banks?

Monzo uses Intercom inside their app for customer support. I far prefer it, because unlike with calling a typical bank it doesn’t demand your full attention. You can just shoot them a message, go off and do something else, and reply in your own time.

Even then, their response rates have been pretty fast.

In terms of financial protection you get the exact same FSCS protection as anywhere else.

Monzo offer the inter-bank rate when making transactions abroad, calcuated at the time of the transaction. When I use my card abroad, I instantly see the transaction in-app, along with the associated cost in £, with no additional fee applied. On top of that, you can withdraw £200 a month from international ATMs with no extra charge.

There are some credit cards which offer free international transactions, but the rates are almost never as good.

Mobile first experiences. Some banks don't offer all of their services via their mobile app.

Sometimes I'm still required to go to a physical branch, etc.

Lower fees for more or less everything, better feature velocity, bill splitting, monzo.me links, a CEO I actually trust, supporting a consumer-first company, better payment authentication (their 3D-whatever sends you a tap-tp-authorise notification), instant card freeze/unfreeze if you misplace it

You probably need to try Monzo to understand how good it is. A lot of comments here explain exactly what is awesome about the app.

you can gain from some sweet VC funded fx rates (for now...)