What to do if you need support with your banking or to give access to someone you trust

If you need support with your banking from someone you trust, this page covers what you need to know to work out which type of access you may want. 

You may choose to give access if: 

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1. Types of access we can support

Support with day-to-day spending

If you need support with general day-to-day spending, like running errands or picking up groceries, you can request a Connected Card in the Starling app. It’s an additional debit card that’s linked to a designated Space in your account (rather than your main account), so anyone you give it to can spend on your behalf with your permission. And so you’re always in control, you can only have £200 in there at any given time, which you can top up whenever.

Support by a Legal or Court Appointed Third Party

• Power of Attorney 

Power of Attorney (PoA) is a legal document that allows you (the donor) to select a person, multiple people, or an organisation to manage your finances, if you become unable to do so.

Your chosen PoA needs to be at least 18 years old, and they can’t be declared bankrupt. If the attorney doesn’t bank with Starling and they’re registering for a PoA for your financial affairs, they’ll need to share their ID with us.

• Court of Protection

The Court of Protection decides on financial or welfare matters for people who can no longer do so themselves because of mental incapacity and no other legal arrangements are in place (such as a PoA). The proposed ‘deputy’ will need to apply to the court, not the person needing the help.

There are several reasons people may lack mental capacity, for example:

The Court of Protection authorises the applicant to make decisions on behalf of the person needing help.

Support in exceptional circumstances

We understand that there may be times when you need to support a Starling customer with their finances but don’t have any Power of Attorney (PoA) access in place. If you’re in this position and need to talk to someone, call us on 0207 930 4450 and we may be able to help in the short term while you apply for longer term access.

2. Types of access we can’t support:

Third party access

Third party access, also known as third party mandate or third party authority, is when temporary access is given to another person so they can help manage your money.

This is not a type of access that Starling can currently support, outside of limited exceptional circumstances. However, we’re working on developing more functionality to allow you to give access to your account to someone you trust in the most secure way possible.

3. How we can help

The process of getting the right documentation can be complicated, and it may be needed at a difficult time, which is why we’re here to support you in any way we can.

For a Power of Attorney, you should know that only the appointed attorney or attorneys can register the PoA. As for Court of Protection orders, only the appointed deputy, guardian or controller can register the order. In both cases, if there’s more than one appointed attorney, or deputy or guardian and you’re acting together, then we’ll need to ask each one for an identity document and contact details so we can add them to our systems. Once that’s done, they should let us know which one we should speak to about managing your money.

We can’t accept arrangements that specify the attorneys or deputies, guardians or controllers must act jointly. We can only accept arrangements that specify they can act jointly and severally. 

There’s more information about what it means to act jointly or jointly and severally on the gov.uk website.

4. More support and information 

There are plenty of dedicated organisations that can offer you practical help and advice on how to apply or proceed with the right application to manage someone else’s finances. 

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