Banks are finally catching on the benefits of digital technology.

With digital technology reinventing so much of the drudgery of daily life, it’s incredible how cumbersome and out-of-step modern banking can be.

I can order kimchi bibimbap to my sofa with a swipe and a tap, stream humanity’s greatest works to my phone on the bus, live-translate High Valyrian or video-chat far-flung relatives for free, but banking? It can still take two days for a credit card payment to clear and two months and 20 rounds of paperwork to negotiate a mortgage.

While there are some attempts by the established guard to innovate, little competition means there is little incentive for change.

Thankfully, steps taken by the Financial Services Authority in 2013 to overhaul UK retail banking and introduce more competition by making it easier to set up new banks with less upfront capital are bearing out. Traditional branch-based challengers were what was in mind – Metro Bank, TSB, Virgin Money and so on – but tiny digital-only upstarts are filling the gap. Unencumbered by bricks-and-mortar overheads and bulky legacy infrastructure, and empowered by slick technology, these so-called neobanks are rethinking personal-finance services with a blank slate, finally giving us banking to suit modern life. Here are some of the ways our relationship with money is changing.

If you need to switch your mortgage and you haven’t got time to meet your bank manager for a lengthy sit-down in your lunch break, mobile-only Atom offers in-app mortgages, connecting customers to more than 100 brokers at generous rates that high-street banks can’t afford.

Atom, a Durham-based startup and an early player on the UK fintech scene, can now take customer deposits and, alongside its mortgage platform, offers generous savings accounts and a lending product for small businesses. Trussle and Habito are other startup mortgage brokers.

Most neobanks are more modest money-management platforms, which offer pre-paid cards and, some of them, fully fledged current accounts that put an emphasis on tracking your spending in real time, helping you visualise it and manage your cash more wisely. Tandem, for example, lets you know if your electricity or phone bill is higher than last month’s, and helps you reduce it by allowing you to switch tariffs or providers within the app. The app’s artificial intelligence also looks ahead at bills that are about to hit, warning you in advance not to overspend and helping you smooth out your spending.

Budgeting-hipster hero Monzo offers, like Tandem, a pre-paid Mastercard that you load up and spend on everyday purchases. But a key selling point is a transparent fee structure and no charges on foreign spend – another modern-banking gripe – with currency exchanged at the plain Mastercard rate. Revolut doubles down on the offer of easy and free foreign spend services, allowing all kinds of international transfers with no fees, and lets customers open bank accounts and manage multiple currencies in one place.

Monzo is aiming to roll out current accounts with overdrafts by the end of the year and, even further down the line, it promises to integrate with other services and products, such as Transport For London’s journey data, and other financial products such as loans or insurance. And this is where the money is. The likes of Monzo aspire to sort all your money concerns into one place, while also providing a hub to new services (an open banking directive coming into force early next year will require banks to allow third-party access to their data, opening up a raft of possible products).

“The future of banking revolves around the customer being in control of their finances,” says Mr Tristan Thomas, head of marketing and community at Monzo. “We want to integrate with services and companies that really benefit consumers and save them meaningful amounts of money every month. That’s unlikely to be through the traditional style of reward points, which are becoming increasingly more complicated and less valuable over time.”

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