Starling is an independent, privately-owned company and is not part of any other bank. Starling is 24% owned by CEO and founder Anne Boden, employees and ex-employees and an employee benefits trust set up for employees. Other investors are: Harry McPike, a global private investor with a focus on technology and financial sector opportunities. He is represented on the board by two investor directors: Lázaro Campos, a fintech investor and entrepreneur and former CEO of SWIFT, and Marcus Traill, a senior investment management professional and director of QuantRes, a global proprietary quantitative trading firm. Merian Global Investors, a leading public investor in the UK.

About Starling Bank

Q: What is Starling Bank?

Starling Bank is an award-winning and fully-licensed bank built to give people a fairer, smarter and more human alternative to the banks of the past. We offer four different account types – personal , business , joint and euro , plus a child card . Pairing this with a pioneering payment services proposition for businesses, Starling’s world-class tech reimagines banking for life today, putting the tools people need to feel good about money in the palm of their hand. All of Starling’s accounts are protected up to £85,000 by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Want to find out how to use Starling Bank? Walk this way.

What is Starling Bank?

Starling Bank is an award-winning, fully-licensed and regulated bank built to give people a fairer, smarter and more human alternative to the banks of the past. It offers personal, business, joint, teen, euro and dollar accounts alongside a child card and a range of lending products. Starling also provides B2B banking and payments services through its Banking-as-a-Service model based on the proprietary technology platform that it uses to power its own bank. The Starling Marketplace offers customers in-app access to a selection of third party financial services. Headquartered in London, it has offices in Southampton, Cardiff and Dublin.

How we got here

Starling was founded in 2014 by industry-leading banker Anne Boden, who recognised how technology could transform the way people manage their money and serve customers in a way that traditional banks hadn’t. We were voted Best British Bank in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and topped the Which? customer satisfaction table for 2020 and 2021. Our customers also rate us Excellent on Trustpilot.

Follow our journey.

See all of the awards we’ve won.

How many customers does Starling have?

Starling has opened more than 2.8 million customer accounts.

Why the name Starling?

The Starling bird is sociable, adaptable, friendly and supportive – all qualities we wanted from our new bank. It also works as part of a team to make something as complex as a murmuration feel beautifully simple. You see where we’re going with this.

Plus, it’s a rather successful bird, which arrives in huge numbers in each new territory and displaces the old guard. Enough said.

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Why we’re different

Kinder to the planet

We’re branchless, paperless and run on renewable energy. Last year, we started planting thousands of trees every month. What’s more, our debit cards are made from recycled plastic and we’ve pledged to become a NetZero company.

A bank that doesn’t cost the Earth.

When you refer someone to Starling, and they open an account, we’ll plant a tree to say thanks.

Who owns Starling?

Starling is an independent, privately-owned company and is not part of any other bank.

It is part-owned by CEO and founder Anne Boden, employees and an employee benefits trust set up for employees.

Its investors include some of the world’s biggest financial heavyweights. They are:

JTC, which oversees the investment activity of Harry McPike, a global private investor; Jupiter (formerly Merian), a leading investor in the UK; Fidelity Management & Research Company, a global investor; RPMI Railpen, the investment manager for the £31 billion Railways Pension Scheme; Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar; Millennium Management, a global investment firm; and Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, part of Goldman Sachs Group.

Our people

Starling’s head office is in London, but our team works across offices in Southampton, Cardiff and Dublin – and it’s growing every month!

From the engineers who craft it and the security experts who protect it to the customer service reps who support it, our bank brings an incredibly diverse mix of people together to solve customer’s problems and build a better bank for everyone.

Meet Starling’s leadership team.

Meet the board.