Starling, however, has been magic. I swapped my primary banking over to them and the only issue I've had is their dislike of rooted phones. That's only a minor inconvenience every few months when I forget to upgrade Magisk before the Starling app, though.
Transferwise I've used many times to transfer money for larger purchases in Europe. No complaints, but haven't tried the banking side of it.
I'm an investor in Revolut due to their aggressive growth strategy, but I wouldn't use them personally.
As for Monzo, I like their app but missing features like being able to view your full CVV number in app, or link the app to all your other bank accounts on the free tier, basically prevent me from using them as my primary bank
I use them for some of my overseas customers, my only challenge with them is the limited number of currencies they support e.g. had to open a Revolut account to get payment from a Canadian customer
With a bank you have up to £85,000 insured and guaranteed e.g. if the bank fails
Customer support, features roll out, chargebacks etc - all way better experience than the local banks.
They singlehandedly forced all the banks in my country to implement apple pay / google wallet. For years nobody bothered, the moment Revolut entered the market, with apple pay support, the banks scrambled to add it themselves.
One time I even had my card stolen while traveling abroad - got a new card within two days, global delivery. I was very pleasantly surprised.
But I also understand the risks and don’t really use them for long term asset management for now. Just as a front for all of my expenses - their analytics are just awesome.
Edit: I'd like to add that revolut was very helpful after most of my valuables were stolen in 2019. While my other bank took three weeks to deliver a new debit card, a virtual card issued by revolut worked immediately via NFC.
and again, for me revolut was a disaster and i will not recommend them.
for trading/investments it really depends on your situation and location.
(for example: some countries offer 0% taxes on capital gains for trading if done using special products, but not all available platforms will have them...)
1. revolut - these guys are complete jokers. closed after being asked to provide the proof of funding 3 times in 3 months.
2. hsbc/first direct - somewhat decent. but i only use it to top up my other accounts. i try to avoid them, as they're just too big.
3. starling - simple, no-nonsense banking from a startup.
4. revolut business - had my account closed down by the "bank" because they didn't want my business. no reasons given. again, complete jokers.
5. freetrade - decent investing platform, but very very amateurish.
6. saxo bank - professional investing. they're a huge company, never had issues with them. and yes, they of course accept me buying gme and the like, plus they also support options. unfortunately it costs. a lot.
7. metro bank - what can i say. it feels like a 20th century bank with a nice app. had many issues with them, including a transfer that went missing for 2 weeks, and a EUR account that forced me to go to their branch every time i wanted to do a transfer.
8. ing bank nv - depending on the territory you're opening the account, they might be either really bad or somewhat bad.
9. rabobank - bank was constantly getting hacked and all account ops were blocked while the hacking was happening. also, the hackers managed to empty my account and the bank representative had to use a special card to withdraw some funds so that i could continue living.
later edit:
10. transferwise - very slick, minimal fees, used them from before they were a bank. no issues so far.
11. monzo - i'm not in their target market unfortunately. their features are not useful to me.