Digital challenger bank Starling is “spearheading a new movement” by giving companies access to its technology and allowing them to launch their own bank accounts.
The FinTech has announced it is expanding its banking-as-a-service and payment services offer, bringing white label banking services to the UK.
Access to Starling’s technology through its APIs will allow businesses – ranging from major banks, government departments and FinTech start-ups – to develop and scale new financial products quickly and without the need to obtain their own banking licence.
The start-up, founded by CEO Anne Boden MBE in 2014, says it hopes the move will inject competition into a market that has been dominated since the 1960s.
“The banking transformation has begun, we’re enabling customers to pick and choose the applications and services they need and how they use them,” said Boden, who is speaking today at the PayExpo 2018 conference in London.
Starling’s payment services and banking-as-a-service clients include French challenger bank Ditto, the Department for Work and Pensions and investment marketplace Raisin UK.
The start-up is already supporting several FinTech companies and has now revealed that it is working with Instarem, Vitesse, Incuto and AccessPay.
It also has a number of partnerships with companies such as Vocalink, CurrencyCloud, Form3, Railsbank and Bankable, and is also working with FIS Global.
Boden added: “The API economy is far more important and relevant to banking than PSD2 and Open Banking.
“It is changing the rules of the game and does not need legislation for its survival or existence. We’re proud to be one of the first real implementations of this model for the banking industry.”