Starling Bank, a U.K. challenger bank, has positioned itself to disrupt retail banking. Now, the company is hoping to do the same for corporate banking.
News reports in The Telegraph said Wednesday (Oct. 4) that Starling is launching a business banking service early next year, just months after the company rolled out its app-only current account service for consumers.
According to Starling Bank Founder and Chief Executive, Anne Boden, corporate banking and business lending is a market that has been “highly concentrated with a few big players for too long.” She cited the recent decision by the European Commission not to force the Royal Bank of Scotland to divest its Williams & Glyn unit, a move Boden said would have boosted competition in the B2B banking space.
In an interview with the publication, Anne Boden also offered a few details about what the B2B service will look like.
“It will be very easy to get up and running, taking five minutes or less,” she said. “At the moment, opening a business account can take many hours at a branch. Business owners are far too busy for that.”
Reports said Starling’s corporate account solution will provide a free business account with linked invoicing and accounting solutions. The platform will also support real-time international payments. Initially, reports added, Starling’s service will focus on small businesses (SMBs), entrepreneurs and independent traders.
Starling’s COO Julian Sawyer recently spoke with PYMNTS about efforts by the bank to distinguish itself from other mobile financial services solutions.
“We’re a digital technology company that happens to be doing banking and payments,” she said, “so we want to have technology leading the way for us. At the end of the day, we’re good at payments and we’re good at technology, and we want to combine those efforts so we can kind of lead the pack.”
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