Monzo beats Starling on overdraft requests, claims Built for Mars

Exploring three key areas of UX which work to set the Monzo and Starling’s request for overdraft experience apart, Ramsey concludes that the former takes the lead in this race.

“Starling is typically world-class, but in this instance, they’ve dropped the ball. Requesting an overdraft was not a great experience. But Monzo’s is great, and kudos to them. They’ve crafted a beautiful and delightful experience, once again.”

The first consideration Ramsey raises is that of ‘Regret theory,’ more specifically, the fact that Starling asks how much the user wants to borrow before completing any kind of eligibility assessment. This results in users potentially asking for an arbitrary overdraft figure, being rejected, and unable to re-apply for another three months.

This is compounded by Starling’s post-overdraft application message which requests that applicants do not “fill in a new overdraft application or get in touch with us in the meantime as this may delay our review process.”

Unfortunately, Ramsey theorises, this may be a result of high numbers of users contacting support because of the initially large overdraft requests being applied for, à la:

By comparison, Monzo’s approach runs an eligibility check before displaying the parameters of the overdraft request itself.

Second, Ramsey goes on to explore the way both banks approached ‘Selectively hiding content’, whereby apps need to keep the experience streamlined, while providing enough context and information for the process to be easily digested by the user. He notes that Monzo’s execution of this is “brilliant”, providing the below as a clear illustration:

Third, Ramsey’s comparison underscores (quite a number of times) the need for clarity in word choice throughout the experience. While this seems obvious, the need for descriptive calls to action (CTAs) in every button label is something which significantly drags down the Starling experience.

While noting that Starling is normally “great at having descriptive” CTAs, he argues that when it comes to the screen where users set their overdraft limit, “Starling’s is generic, Monzo’s is specific.”