Starling Bank has today fully launched its mobile business bank accounts, open to small businesses and entrepreneurs across the UK with a variety of additional features.
Starling business users will be able to make both local and international payments to suppliers, see monthly categorised breakdowns of transactions and set aside money for purposes such as tax using the in-account ringfenced Goals feature. Through Starling’s business marketplace partnerships, users will also be able to access chosen partners, including account and invoicing platforms like Albert, streamlining the bookkeeping process.
The bank says that today’s news makes it the first “fully licensed mobile-only bank to launch business accounts”, separating it from its digital competitors like Revolut and Tide who have yet to achieve FCA approval in the UK. Revolut is in the process of acquiring a European banking licence in Lithuania, and Tide was recently authorised as an e-money institution by the FCA just last week.
“In a market with almost no meaningful competition, entrepreneurs and small business owners have for too long been marginalised and taken advantage of by big banks,” said Starling Bank CEO Anne Boden (pictured, right).
“Having spent the past year building an award-winning bank and personal current account, today we’re happy to announce that we’re launching a business account which offers all of the same great features and more to small businesses and entrepreneurs.”
Starling also promises that new features are on their way for the business bank accounts, enabling it to cater for more complex businesses through updates like being able to make cash deposits via UK Post Offices.
Speaking at the AltFi London Summit earlier this week, Boden stated that while big banks might be able to replicate the features of many digital competitors, “they won’t be able to copy the neo-bank cost base”. She also confirmed that Starling currently has more than 90 firms lined up to negotiate access to its banking marketplace, and hopes to have 25 of those partnerships go live by the end of 2018.
