Starling Bank's much-trailed expansion into European markets will come in the form of a banking-as-a-service technology package, rather than a customer-facing proposition.
Arriving in H1 2022, Starling will launch its services in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.
Dubbed 'Starling-as-a-Service', the offering will enable businesses to build their own financial products on its banking platform, such as savings or current accounts, integrated digital wallets, kids’ cards and debit cards. Starling handles the technical and regulatory demands behind the scenes, leaving businesses to take care of their customers with embedded banking baked in.
CEO Anne Boden, “The thriving technology and fintech scene in European markets makes them a great fit for the culture of innovation at Starling, and therefore a natural space for us to offer and develop our solutions in Europe.
“We have seen a consistent and growing demand for digital financial services, further accelerated by extended lockdowns and a shift in consumer behaviours in key European markets, and it is clear that Starling can power new and exciting opportunities for businesses across Europe”
Starling launched BaaS in the UK in 2018 and already has 25 payment and banking services customers, including Raisin, CurrencyCloud, Moneybox and Vitesse.
In a letter to her future self on LinkedIn, Boden writes: "This new service offers our partners the benefit of Starling’s advanced technology, to use as their own. Thanks to embedded finance, businesses as diverse as retailers to utilities, from healthcare to manufacturing, now have the opportunity to derive a significant proportion of their revenues from financial services."