UK FinTech Starling Bank Sees Revenues Soar 600 Pct

Like its avian namesake, Starling Bank is taking flight.

The British FinTech saw its revenue rise by nearly 600 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to a report released by the bank Thursday (July 22).

Revenues increased to 97.6 million pounds for the period ending March 31 of this year, up from 14 million pounds for the period ended Nov. 30, 2019, the report said.

Meanwhile, Starling’s deposit base grew by nearly 500 percent to 5.8 billion pounds, up from 1 billion pounds in 2019, while customer account numbers more than doubled to 2.1 million pounds, compared to 926,000 pounds in 2019, per the report.

“Starling is pulling away from the rest of the Fintech pack,” CEO Anne Boden said in a news release. “Now that we are profitable and growing responsibly, we’re gaining momentum, generating our own capital, and executing on our strategy to expand lending.”

Part of that momentum came from a 50 million pound investment from Goldman Sachs Growth Equity in April during an oversubscribed series D funding round, which valued Starling at more than 1.1 billion pounds pre-money.

The bank’s trading update shows that revenue hit 42.8 million pounds in the three months to the end of June 2021, Q1 of its current financial year. That puts Starling’s annualized revenue run rate at more than 170 million pounds.

Starling says it’s adding new accounts at the rate of one per every 34 seconds, with 2.3 million open accounts as of the end of June, giving it a 6.3 percent share of the U.K. small business banking market, more than double its share from last year.

The bank also recently announced the launch of a mobile app for children using its Kite debit card. This app is available for kids ages 6 to 16 — pending parental permission — who can use it to check balances, see transactions and access real-time spending notifications.