Starling not showing underlying merchants when spending through Curve

[joseph.newman]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if you could look to change a feature? I discussed it on the phone with a member of management last month, but I made it a passing comment.

Unfortunately, my transactions with Curve will be going down now. This is because both Barclays and Starling (and I’m sure most other banks) show you spending insights. Unfortunately that means if all my spending is with Curve, which it pretty much is, I get no insight. Literally only ‘Curve’.

Attached is a screenshot to show an example. (I’ve ensured I’m comfortable sharing this, and not revealing anything I wouldn’t want to share.)

Could Curve let us know when they change this, so the underlying merchant shows? I know that’s something you said is being worked on on the phone, but for now I like how my bank shows me my transactions if I use their card.

Until this happens, it’s best to use my banks debit card, not Curve. I hope to be using you more again in the future. (And to get my investors card…!)

Joseph.

[chevignon93]

You should put it in the “Ideas” category so people can vote on it.

[ediflyer]

@chevignon93

You should put it in the “Ideas” category so people can vote on it.

Moved to Ideas

[nvk]

Curve actually does include the original merchant in the transaction description, e.g. CRV*MERCHANT. Looks like your bank is lumping them all together under “Curve”. This is not something Curve can do anything about.

[poeliev]

@nvk

Curve actually does include the original merchant in the transaction description, e.g. CRV*MERCHANT.

Correct! So what OP is actually asking for is for Curve to remove the CRV*, which can already be voted for here:

Stop Replacing Merchant Name with CRV* Prefix and Pass On the Original Information like Google Pay

Why don’t you use stop using CRV* prefix in all transaction information and pass on the original information to underlying bank of which the card is being used? Why don’t you replicate what Google Pay, PayPal (with their debit cards) and Apple Pay do? They pass on the original information to the underlying card. So whenever I use Revolut with Google Pay, it shows me correct merchant name like Burger King or McDonalds, or “Tesco Express”. But if I use Curve card and say, Revolut card as underly…

[joseph.newman]

With Starling, it’s awkward. It shows literally as shown “Curve” unless I go into each and every one. Starling are friendly so I’m certain they can be flirted with, but as you can see it’s really not looking good for me at the moment using Curve.

[joseph.newman]

FYI, Starling don’t show ‘Crv’, for that I wouldn’t mind. Each transaction in my statement shows as ‘CURVE’. I want to see the original transaction. Unless I need to change the subject to ‘Make Starling work better with CURVE’?

[poeliev]

Starling puts everything under the Curve category partly because each transaction (they are ‘receiving’ from Curve) starts with CRV*. Curve already ‘sends’ the original transaction to Starling, but puts ‘CRV*’ in front of it. That is actually what is partly causing this ‘problem’.

The idea I gave the link to is asking Curve to ‘send’ the original transaction in the same way as GooglePay/Apple Pay/PayPal is doing, this would actually solve your problem, because Curve wouldn’t show as the merchant anymore.

[nvk]

@poeliev

Correct! So what OP is actually asking for is for Curve to remove the CRV*, which can already be voted for here:

We can vote for that but it won’t happen because Curve is the merchant so they need to include their identifier in the billing descriptor.

IMHO, the best OP can do is ask their bank to improve their app. Clearly they (the bank) are trying to be smart and post-process billing descriptors and they are able to identify Curve transactions. They should go one step further and capture the dynamic part of the descriptor (after the asterisk).

[poeliev]

@nvk

IMHO, the best OP can do is ask their bank to improve their app.

Agree. Most of my ‘banks’ know how to process, show and categorize Curve transactions (that is remove the CRV* part and/or put the transaction in the right spending category), though most of them are FinTechs.

[jayant]

I think the prefix was included so that customers know how the money was spent and this may reduce questions about the transaction. Plus, from your banks’ POV, curve happens to be the merchant. Some banks (Monzo for example) skip the curve prefix and display on the final merchant’s name in their apps.

[ediflyer]

I don’t think Curve have much choice - it’s just like Paypal have to prefix their transactions with that too. Sounds like it would be better to speak to Starling about how they display them in their app.

[Fingers21]

One way curve might be able to show the payment, so when I go to tesco regardless of bank in curves options when you set card up
Sort code 00 00 00
Acc no 11 22 33 44
Name madem nobody
Bank name ----'xxxx------
Then choose where the CRV shows on the banks statement before shop or after so:
CRV,Tesco. Or. Tesco,CRV
It’s only to how we paid for the item.

[scott.vessey]

I had a message exchange with Starling on this topic, when ALL my Curve transactions were categorised as “online” regardless of the actual transaction information pushed from Curve to Starling.

Starling essentially said they had no plans to do anything about it.

Every other back-end card I’ve used with Curve has not had this issue.

Sadly, it has pretty much stopped me using my Curve card.

[abdullah]

Hi,

This is something that disturbs me actually. I asked Starling and they told me that Curve sends us minimal information about the original retailer in the detailed transaction reference and they don’t have any plan to do something about this.

What if Curve can make a change about the merchant information and add the original retailer name in the merchant name instead of sending that through transaction reference?

Instead of just sending Curve, can you send as Curve*Retailer name? Otherwise, I see tons of Curve text without any description in my Starling statement:

Just because of this, I have to stop using Curve and this is not something I will be happy with.

[Nelthorim]

This is on Starling. Curve already sends the merchant name as CRV*Merchant name, and always has.

[minornine]

I know this thread is some months old but I wanted to share that I recently contacted Starling to request they provide the merchant name in transaction data. I got the same stock response - firstly that Startling can’t provide this information, and secondly that they have no plans to do so. I pointed out that both Monzo and HSBC are able to provide this information and therefore Starling must also be in a position to do the same. I also indicated that if they don’t fix this then I’ll be moving my banking to Monzo. I’m giving them another week to respond and then I’ll make that change.

For me, its far more valuable to continue to use my Curve wallet, but change the primary banking provider I use.

[Malik]

Starling does show the merchant name as below.

And in the CSV export.

[minornine]

Thank you - I hadn’t noticed this. Proof then that Staring does have what it takes to show the merchant in the spending transactions list.

My assumption is that Starling is defending its own product offering by not showing the curve transaction merchant name. It’s understandable but poor.

[joseph.newman]

We already knew that the small text at the bottom of the itemised entry was there, the issue is that it shows “Curve” as the notification and when you look at your spend, without clicking each individual entry.

I feel that Starling could be as innovative as Monzo etc, and put the actual retailer in the notifications and transaction lists for customers ease. Nobody with a Curve card wants to go into each and every transaction and look at the small print.