After announcing earlier this year that the bank plans to offer business accounts to entrepreneurs, small businesses and sole traders in early 2018, Starling Bank has now revealed it will be partnering up with mobile invoice and expense platform Albert.
Albert claims to be the UK’s highest rated finance app for freelancers, and will utilise the bank’s Open API integration by automatically matching transactions from Starling Bank with the invoices sent from its own app.
“It’s crazy that most self-employed people still don’t feel comfortable with their daily finances. These are the basic aspects of our lives that are supposed to be easy,” said Ivo Weevers, CEO and co-founder of Albert.
“To solve this, one needs to leapfrog the existing status quo. Albert is super thrilled to have found a perfect partner in Starling to make this vision a reality for all the self-employed.”
The experience is only available in beta for now, with selected users being able to connect Albert directly with their Starling account from today by registering on Albert’s website. The full integration is expected to be publicly available to all customers with Starling’s business account launch next year.
Other benefits of connecting the two apps will be automated expenses, and being able to see your Starling account balance in real-time inside the Albert app.
Starling and Albert are entering a somewhat diluted market, as other challenger banks like Revolut and Curve, have already announced or released integrations for their business accounts with expense software Xero.
The news comes as Starling Bank was recently granted permissions to offer a wide range of financial services to customers in-app, making way for potential products like loans, mortgages and ISAs.
Commenting on the partnership, Starling Bank CEO Anne Boden said: “Albert are the perfect partner for us as we continue to challenge conventional thinking in banking. Small businesses need to be agile and entrepreneurs should spend their time building on their ideas, not bogged down in paperwork.
“Starling and Albert are firmly on the side of the entrepreneur and this partnership will make their lives – and businesses – better.
