If you forecasted banking-as-a-service as one of the top trends in 2022, you can go ahead and put a check mark next to your prediction. That’s because U.K.-based digital bank Starling Bank announced today it is launching a software-as-a-service product, Starling as a Service.
Starling as a Service will help banks launch their own digital banks in months. “With SaaS (or Starling as a Service, as we like to call it) we will offer our partners the benefit of Starling’s advanced technology to use as their own,” Starling CEO Anne Boden announced in a blog post. “It will be their license, our technology.”
The move is part of a new phase for the digital bank, one that also includes an expansion of Starling’s lending offering. Going forward, Starling will now offer “a mix of strategic forward flow arrangements, organic lending across various asset classes, and a targeted M&A strategy.”
Today’s announcement also showcased some of the bank’s growth metrics. Starling has opened over 2.7 million accounts since its 2014 launch, 475,000 of which are SME accounts. The company now has $11.4 billion (£8.4 billion) in customer deposits, a figure that has risen almost $5 billion from $6.5 billion (£4.8 billion) at this same time last year. Additionally, the company has grown its lending from $2.6 billion (£1.9 billion) to $4.2 billion (£3.1 billion).
Along with the boost in these metrics, Starling also grew as a company in 2021. The bank acquired buy-to-let lender Fleet Mortgages last July, launched a new app for kids called Kite, committed to offset its own carbon emissions, (excluding lending and investments), and raised $437 million (£322 million) in March. Starling is now valued in excess of $1.5 billion (£1.1 billion).