Top 10 banking apps for August 2019
Tired of clunky apps that make you think you’ve travelled back to the early 2000s? We’ve picked out the slickest mobile banking apps for you.
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A slick and easy-to-use mobile app has become a must-have for both digital and challenger banks, but not all financial institutions are quite there yet. We’ve had a look at who’s able to offer you the best journey purely from your phone.
While challenger banks are still taking the lion’s share, some traditional banks are catching up and adding innovative features to their banking apps, so the competition is hotting up. Let’s have a look.
Our top 10 mobile banking apps
| Rank | App | Review | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 |  |
Starling | Absolutely packed with features, Starling Bank’s banking app is easy to use and lets you handle all the aspects of your current account, including managing overdrafts, setting savings goals and adding receipts and notes to your payments. | Visit Starling |
| #2 |  |
Monzo | Monzo’s reputation for being one of the coolest banking apps available isn’t unwarranted. It’s slick and colourful, lets you access all the features of your bank account and its spending reports make budgeting almost fun. | Read our review |
| #3 |  |
Revolut | Beside being super competitive when it comes to travelling and sending money overseas, the Revolut app also integrates effortlessly in your day-to-day money life, offering a series of useful features for saving and organising your finances. | Visit Revolut |
| #4 |  |
Barclays | Barclays tops the chart of traditional banks and its banking app is more techy than you’d expect from such a heavyweight. Cool features include the ability to categorise your spending and to see accounts you hold with other banks. | Read our review |
| #5 |  |
Monese | Built for expats who have just moved to the UK, Monese has all you can expect from a digital banking app, from the ability to instantly freeze your card if you lose it to a nice visualisation of your spending data. | Visit Monese |
| #6 |  |
Halifax | Halifax has built a solid banking app that looks clean and tidy. It lets you apply directly for other products and services including overdrafts, send money abroad and log in using face or touch ID. | Read our review |
| #7 |  |
Lloyds Bank | The Lloyds banking app has got all the basic banking features covered, from checking your transactions to locating the nearest branch. Unlike many traditional banks’ apps, it also supports push notifications. | Read our review |
| #8 |  |
N26 | N26 is fairly new to the UK market, so it’s still working on making all its features available. Nonetheless, the app does the job while also adding a few money management features on top, such as the ability to set saving goals. | Visit N26 Bank |
| #9 |  |
dozens | This brand new digital banking app has ambitious plans for the future and already stands out thanks to some handy features such as the ability to freeze your card, categorise your spending and visualise it in different ways. | Read our review |
| #10 |  |
NatWest | While not being the slickest on the market, the NatWest app does the job with grace. Aside from all the basic features you can expect, it also lets you withdraw cash through a unique code on your phone if you forget your card. | Read our review |
How we picked our top 10 banking apps
Did we choose according to who we liked best or who used the brightest colours? Not really. We developed a methodology that comes with a huge spreadsheet you don’t really want to have to look at, assigned points to each banking app available on the market (yes, all of them!) and then ranked them accordingly.
Our methodology essentially takes two factors into account:
- Features. The more the merrier. We like apps that let you manage and personalise your money stuff as much as possible. We also have a soft spot for budgeting features that help you understand where and what you usually spend your money on.
- Simplicity of use. An app can have a million features and still be a user experience nightmare. All the top apps that we’ve selected look clean and tidy and are fairly easy to use from the first time you start fiddling around with them.
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