…and online services

Living or visiting London sometimes is complicated or at least expensive. From the typical “How to get from A to B”, over nearest or best lunch places to transferring money back home, several Apps offer the same service with different results. Living and working for almost two years in London now led to a few clear winners for several tasks!

25.02.2015: Update on Number26

Transportation

Citymapper

By far the best public transportation app on the market is Citymapper. Not only London, but also Birmingham and Manchester in the UK, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Lyon, Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and Lisbon in mainland Europe, Montreal, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Toronto, Washington DC, Chicago, Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles in North America, México DF and Sao Paulo in Central- and South America as well as Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore in Asia can be visited with this fantastic transportation app.
If the variety of cities isn’t argument enough maybe the variety of different transport options is: Bus, Tube, Overground, Bicycle, Ferry, Rail, Tram, Cab, Walking and Catapult(!) times are shown for any planned trip. Either one transportation vehicle only or several mixed, Citymapper shows you fastest options, rain safe options (not unimportant in London) or if the underground is on strike, strike-safe options. Real-time timetables, Apple Watch support and many more things easily make Citymapper the best transportation App there is!
Citymapper just received $40m in Series B from Index, Benchmark, Yuri Milner and others, so there is a lot more to come and they are definitely here to stay.

Citymapper on the App StoreCitymapper for Android

Uber

The most convenient way to change locations probably is Uber. 99.9% of the time cars are super clean, drivers friendly and rides faster than with every other transportation vehicle. At the same time it is definitely cheaper than with the famous London black cabs. Just press a button in the app and a driver will pick you up wherever you are. You can share your ETA or split fare within the app and when you arrived at your destination you rate your driver (and he will rate you) to secure quality.

Use code guvcd while registration (or afterwards) to receive a free ride!

Uber on the App StoreUber for Android

Santander Cycles

Sunny day? Looking for quickest option to get from A to B? If you don’t have an own bike, the Santander Cycles (former Barclays Bikes) are your weapon of choice. Find the nearest bikes, retrieve codes and track the space/bike availability. That easy!

Santander Cycles on the App StoreSantander Cycles for Android

Restaurants & POIs

Foursquare

There are tons of discovery/recommendation apps. Some usable worldwide, some city-specific. From my point of view Foursquare still is the best way to quickly find the best (or at least a good) breakfast-, lunch-, dinner-, coffee-, bar-, nightclub-place around – especially when not having a clue where to go.

Foursquare on the App Store Foursquare for Android

Banking & transferring money

Transferwise

When moving to London (or any other City/Country with a different currency than your home country) you soon will realize what a pain in the arse it is to send/transfer money back home (or the other way round). And you will need to do that: either there still are some bills to pay at home (contracts, insurances and so on) or you need money on your new foreign currency bank account. And one thing is for sure, banks will rip you off! Either with fees you see in advance or with a (hidden and/or really bad) exchange rate that will cost you even more. I easily paid fees as high as the price of a new iPad in the first three month living in London. With Transferwise you save up to 10 times the amount you had to pay when using your bank. At the same time it is faster and more convenient to use than any traditional money transfer.

Additionally when using this link your first transaction up to £3,000 will be completely free.

Mondo

I wish Mondo Bank had their bank license yet and would be out of alpha/beta status, then I probably would choose it over every other bank. But until now they don’t have their license (they are in the process of getting it) and are in alpha/beta status, which means: iOS only, just a prepaid card to test and improve the service – no real bank account.
Using the card works great though. Once topped up with money you can use it like a normal credit card. Contactless payments work (so you can use it instead of an Oyster card for public transport in London), pin-terminal payments work, online shopping works. You get realtime notifications on iPhone and Apple Watch and a great overview of how much you spent (and on what). Another positive point: No fees for payments in foreign countries. So you can use the card anywhere in the world and it practically costs you nothing extra.

Lloyds bank

If you’re planning to move to London, you’ll need a bank account. Without a bank account, you can’t rent an apartment (and actually without an apartment/address you cannot get a bank account, infinite loop that you have to master). Until Mondo receive their bank license you need to stick to the old-school banks. Getting an account at Lloyds Bank was relatively hassle free, they have a good app, a good web-interface and you can use it with apple pay. When sending money abroad (or receiving Euros), they will rip you off though (therefor: Transferwise!).

Number26

When you’re in need of an Euro bank account try out Number26! They’re a challenger bank such as Mondo, but with a banking license. That means: real bank account, with real account number and sort code. Best thing: payments and withdrawals abroad are free! Their app really works great, gives you a nice overview of your spendings and you can set up a lot of things (pin code, P2P payments, etc).

The new best thing about Number26: Transferwise is build into the app! That means you can make money transfers from Euros into nine currencies at the real exchange rate. Together with the other benefits and their easy-to-use bank account change service, there is no reason to keep your old dumb bank account.

Number26 on the App StoreNumber26 for Android