Why I Have Both A Traditional And A Digital Bank Account

Digital only banks have been around for quite a while now with Monzo, Starling and Revolt some of those leading the charge. But that isn’t to say that traditional banks are out of the picture. It’s likely most of us over the age of 25 had a traditional bank account opened for us when we were younger. Either by a parent to save for the future, or when you were at school and got your own junior account. A digital bank account has only become a thing of reality in the past decade. And only popular in the past 3-4 years.

Between me and Luke we have a number of different bank accounts, both traditional and digital bank accounts. Having previously discussed the pro’s and con’s of digital only banks, I wanted to get a bit more personal with my own experiences.

The bank accounts I have

I have three main bank accounts; a traditional joint bank account with HSBC. This is the account I am paid into and where all of our household bills come out of from, everything from our mortgage to YouTube Premium.

Then I have two different accounts with Monzo. One is my personal account where all of my spending and saving takes place. So each week when I get my spending money it goes into Monzo. Me and Luke also have a joint Monzo account for our food spending and any household related savings.

In addition to the above Luke has a Starling business account. We also have various ISA’s and credit cards across different banks and financial bodies.

Why I love having a digital bank account

Any regular readers of this blog will know how much I sing the praises of Monzo. In the years I’ve had an account I’ve been able to budget better, save more and have better visibility of my money. Not all digital bank accounts will have the functionality I love, but hopefully they do.

My biggest love is all about the pots. I am a very visual spender and saver and having my money separated out into different pots for different things is game changing. I used to have about seven different Halifax accounts just so I could keep car savings separate from tax savings. You can have a maximum of 20 pots per account in Monzo. At times I have hit my limit, but I’m not even sorry.

My digital bank account has allowed me to roundup my spending so I can save the excess 50p after a £3.50 spending. And as I have Monzo Plus I can increase the amount of these roundups. I used to use Moneybox roundups but hated how it would round things up but only take that rounded up money once a week. So randomly £20 would come out of my account.

Other things I love about my digital bank account

There’s a lot of automation that I really appreciate such as the ability to pay bills out of certain savings pots. Or salary sorter where you can automatically move your money into pots when you’re paid (although I don’t use this one personally).

Having experienced the application process of both Monzo and Starling they’re so much quicker than more traditional banks. As they’re totally geared up to digital they seem to be more intuitive.

And in general comparing to traditional bank accounts the apps are much better, cleaner and easier to use. As they don’t have physical locations you’d expect this. So they can invest in the app and online experience as it’s the only place you can interact.

Why I love having a traditional bank account

Even though I couldn’t be without my digital bank account I will always continue to keep at least one traditional account. There’s some functionality that’s just easier.

With my HSBC account I can insert a cheque into my account through the app. And I know some other banks offer this too. Just by taking photographs of the cheque and inputting the info you can bank it. You can’t do that with a digital bank account and would need to send it off. And that process can be time consuming. With HSBC it generally clears the next working day.

The same can be said about depositing cash, having a traditional bank account can be easier. I will admit there are fewer bank locations now, but if I need to deposit cash I can just go into the bank and it’s done. If I wanted to deposit cash with Monzo I’d need to go to a PayPoint location. And doing this will charge me £1 per deposit.

Do you have a traditional or digital bank account?

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