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In her annual letter, Starling founder and CEO Anne Boden has announced that the bank will launch a Software as a Service (SaaS) proposition during 2022.
The letter reads: “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. If a bank wants a digital bank, they can have one up and running in months with Starling’s SaaS offering. It will be their licence, our technology.”
She furthers that the bank plans to continue expanding lending. “Expect a mix of strategic forward flow arrangements, organic lending across various asset classes and a targeted M&A strategy focusing on selected lending originators.”
The letter also outlines an intention to cater to those starting a new business, emphasising the role of SaaS, online course, and other software services to simplify the running of a company.
Boden provides a broader take on both diversity and fraud in the letter, criticising the state of funding female-backed firms as something carried out in stable times as investors only then have the appetite to “take a chance” on funding women.
“They do what is right because they know that people are watching. I suspect during a crisis, in this case the pandemic. When all eyes are on clear and present dangers, do they expect less scrutiny and stop worrying about who is looking over their shoulder?”
Critical of big tech and social media giants which allow “financial fraudsters to advertise and post content on their platforms that result every day in people being scammed out of their savings,” Boden underscores efforts Starling has made for financial and economic crime to be included in the upcoming Online Safety Bill.
She states that Starling has stopped all advertising on Instagram and Facebook (Meta) in the meantime.
While the letter does not directly address the recent controversy sparked after Boden stated that “Open Banking has not been a success” to the Treasury Select Committee late last year, it does make clear efforts to set Starling apart from all other competitors. “As a profitable, fast-growing fintech built on proprietary software and with a substantial loan book, a valuation in excess of £1 billion and a tightly controlled cost-base, Starling now stands in a category of one.”
Financial Services
