Borrowing shouldn’t be complicated
At Starling, we like to think we’re everything you need from a bank account – and none of the stuff you don’t. We try to unearth the parts of banking that seem antiquated or redundant, and then figure out how to replace them with products that serve the consumer better and make more sense in the context of a digitally dependant age.
And it’s that straightforward, strip-back-the-fluff spirit that’s informed the build of our own personal loan. To figure out the shape it would take, we investigated how loans have traditionally been offered in the past and why they didn’t really give anyone except the banks themselves a fair deal – and that helped us to define exactly what we didn’t want.
Why we’re offering a loan
People manage and need money in different ways, and Starling exists because we decided to provide a smart and safe space for people to manage their money. We view what we’ve built as a support system that helps our customers forge a path to financial freedom, whatever that might personally look like for them.
So that means crafting a banking experience that’s wholly realised and full-service in what it offers. Not everyone needs – or wants – a loan, just as some people prefer not to use an overdraft or build up their savings in Goals. But for others, an official loan imparts a sense of discipline and structure to the idea of borrowing money, compared to an overdraft, which has fewer defined end points and so for some people, can feel a little more arbitrary or haphazard.
As long as there’s a demand for structured lending – which both our community and wider customer base assure us there is – we knew that it was something we needed to add to Starling’s lineup.