Starling Bank

A big award win for our fellow Starling, Kasia, who was named as a winner in the technology category at #RisingStars100 by WeAreTheCity. The awards celebrate talented women across UK industries and professions. Kasia is a Software Engineer here at Starling. She’s also an advocate and mentor for women in tech, teaching budding technologists through Code First Girls and acting as an ambassador to Girl Code and Next Tech Girls. Congratulations! 🌟

Anybody can be good with money. Optimism, aspiration, action. We’re going to show Britain that change is possible. A healthy, active relationship with your money, built through everyday habits. As Chief Marketing Officer, Michele Rousseau, says, “being ‘good with money’ doesn’t mean having a lot of it. It means knowing what to do with what you have. With the right tools and the right mindset, financial wellbeing can be in reach for everyone.” It feels great to be good with money. And to help us show that, we’ve welcomed four new senior hires to the Starling marketing team. Indiana Matine joins us as Brand Strategy Director, John Harrison as Brand and Product Marketing Director, and we welcome both Neil Cooper and Rachel Sullivan as Executive Creative Directors. We’re also working with two agencies, the The Sunshine Company and Wolff Olins, as we move our brand onto new heights. It’s a really exciting time for us, and we can’t wait to share more with you soon. Stay tuned.

We’ve placed second in the latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index, up from sixth in 2024! The Institute of Customer Service surveys the public and ranks 267 household brands across 13 sectors. This year's survey highlighted Starling’s strong customer ethos, focus on emotional connection, high ethical standards and innovative customer-centric experiences like Call Status Indicators. Our COO, Joe Gordon, comments: "This achievement reflects the hard work and dedication of our team, who work tirelessly to empower customers to be good with money, 24/7." A huge thank you to our customers for their votes, and to our dedicated customer operations teams. Wins like this wouldn’t be possible without their relentless pursuit of excellence.

Did you hear about Spending Intelligence, our app’s new AI-powered search bar? Ask it a question about your spending habits – such as ‘How much did I spend on groceries last month?’ – and get an instant answer. Harriet Rees, our CIO, launched Spending Intelligence at London Tech Week. We asked her why this is such a landmark moment for UK banking 👇

Make a difference in your community, with Starling’s support. Colleagues at Starling get 16 hours of paid volunteering time each year. So some Starlings spent a rainy spring day helping out at National Trust’s Rainham Hall. They built paths, cleared weeds while building stronger connections with each other. Here’s why they enjoyed it so much 👇

Introducing Spending Intelligence. Built by Starling, powered by Gemini. Being good with money begins with knowing where it goes. So we built a tool that lets our customers ask about their spending habits, and then use the instant reply to make more informed money decisions. It’s the first tool of its kind in the UK. AI is a big opportunity to positively reshape Britain’s relationship with money. For us, that doesn’t mean cutting corners. It means smart tools, meaningfully deployed, with real benefit to you. This is just the start.

Today we’ve announced our fourth consecutive year of profitability, showing strong growth in revenue, customer numbers and deposits. Highlights include: Starling Group revenue up 5% to £714m Customer deposits reach records levels of £12.1bn Customer accounts up 10% to 4.6m Raman Bhatia, Group CEO, commented: "This performance derives from our unwavering commitment to providing customers with innovative banking solutions and exceptional service. We’re well positioned for further growth and will continue to invest in our people, with around a thousand new hires planned across technology and other strategic areas in the coming three years.” Statutory profit before tax declined to £223m from £301m after the Group incurred a regulatory fine in October, provisioned for the voluntary removal of government guarantees on certain Covid-era loans, and invested heavily in its risk management and control framework. We've continued to innovate with new features, such as Call Status Indicators which, alongside our Safe Phrases awareness initiative, helped drive a 73% decrease in impersonation scams. Engine by Starling’s first clients, Salt Bank in Romania and AMP Bank in Australia, launched their digital banking platforms during the year. Our ambition is global, and with Engine we are now poised to bring our proprietary technology to a global addressable market of some £100bn. Declan Ferguson, Group Chief Financial Officer, added: “The Group generated an underlying profit before tax of £281 million. Our revised capital requirements were communicated in April, taking our total surplus capital to more than £400 million in excess of our regulatory buffers; a 40% increase on last year. In the coming months, we’ll be deploying this capital across Starling Bank, Engine and other international ventures to fuel our growth.”

Introducing the three new leaders joining the executive team here at Starling… Following our recent announcement about our executive team expansion, we’re excited to tell you a little more about the people whose expertise and diverse perspectives are going to be instrumental in driving our continued innovation and growth. Catarina Abrantes-Steinberg will start as our Group Chief People Officer next month, subject to regulatory approval. Catarina has spent the past three years as Chief People Officer at Dojo Paymentsense, where she played a pivotal role in guiding the company through a period of hypergrowth. Prior to her time at Dojo, she held leadership positions at Russell Reynolds Associates and Expedia Inc. Catarina began her career in management consulting with McKinsey & Company. Monica Risam has been appointed Group General Counsel. Monica is a dual-qualified US and UK lawyer with extensive experience in the financial services sector. She joins Starling from the Lombard International Group, where she held the position of Group General Counsel & Company Secretary. Monica has also held senior legal roles at Aviva and GE Capital, and began her career at the international law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Ian Cox joins as Starling’s new Group Head of Internal Audit, also subject to regulatory approval. With over 25 years in the financial services industry managing audit, risk, and governance, Ian will lead the internal audit function across the Group, supporting Starling’s continued commitment to transparency, accountability, and strong risk management. Reporting to the Board Audit Committee, he will work closely with teams across the business to ensure Starling Group continues to meet the highest standards of assurance and compliance. Most recently, Ian was Group Chief Internal Auditor at Network International, based in Dubai. We warmly welcome these talented individuals to the Starling family. They are among eight new members of the executive team brought in by Group CEO Raman Bhatia, who will prepare Starling for its next phase of growth.

We’re delighted to announce four new members of our Executive Committee. The appointments, an internal promotion and three external hires, reflect Starling’s internal talent pool and its ability to attract top talent. Catarina Abrantes-Steinberg, Ian Cox and Monica Risam join leadership roles in the people, audit and legal functions respectively. Bernadette Smith has been promoted to Chief Compliance Officer from her current role as Deputy Chief Risk Officer. Group CEO Raman Bhatia has now added eight senior appointments since he joined in June 2024. Raman said: “I'm thrilled to welcome Catarina, Ian, Monica and Bernadette to Starling's executive team. These appointments reflect our unwavering commitment to building a world-class leadership team with deep expertise. Their combined experience will be instrumental as we prepare for the next phase of growth at Starling.” Bernadette’s promotion is effective immediately, while Catarina, Ian and Monica are expected to formally join Starling in the early summer. Catarina and Ian’s appointments are subject to regulatory approval.

This month marked the end of the 24/25 season for Southampton Football Club Women. We’re thinking about how, together, we’re creating more opportunities in girls’ and women's football in our mission to change the game for good ⚽ In October, we began our Coaches of Tomorrow programme to help get more women and girls into grassroots football coaching. 25 aspiring coaches achieved FA-recognised coaching qualifications and gained the skills and confidence to go out and coach in the community. In March, Starling Bank Scout School returned, with 61% more applications than our first year! We welcomed the successful applicants to a 15-week training programme designed to support more scouts with talent scouting in the girls’ and women’s game. In April, we hosted our Next Starling event, which gave 100 girls aged 9-16 the opportunity to ‘train like stars’ with sessions led by Southampton FC Academy coaches. And Starling Bank Scout School were in attendance too, putting what they’ve learnt into action! More recently, our Starling Bank Coach set off on a few adventures. First, 35 school pupils went to Staplewood training campus to watch Southampton FC Women's training session and meet the squad. A few days later, 50 fans travelled all the way from St Mary's to Bramall Lane to cheer on Southampton FC Women in their final away game of the season against Sheffield United.  Next up is our second Next Starling event at the end of May, where 80 girls from around Hampshire will be given free kits and the chance to play at St Mary’s alongside Academy coaches. Wishing all the players and staff at Southampton FC Women a well-deserved break – we’ll be right with you as you march into next season!