Starling offers Tribe customers real-time European payments

Digital bank Starling will provide customers of payments firm Tribe with real-time access to UK and European payment services.

Tribe, founded in 2018, offers bespoke back-office payment processing technology, providing a flexible digital platform suitable for new services from banks, fintechs, other businesses.

Through its partnership with Starling's Banking Services arm, Tribe will add faster payments and support for Bacs (direct debits).

Founded five years ago, Starling now has 460,000 customers and has also built a banking-as-a-service arm which offers payments and access to its range of financial services to players including the Department for Work and Pensions, the savings and investment group Raisin and payments firm Vitesse.

Starling head of banking services Julian Sawyer said: “Starling’s banking services continues its growth through our partnership with Tribe. Providing innovative businesses access to cutting-edge banking - both cards and bank to bank payments.”

Tribe co-founder and chief executive Suresh Vaghjiani added: “In the Open Banking era, connectivity is king. Consumers want to choose how they pay and get paid and in real-time, with all the functionality of a full bank account.”

For Tribe's part, it also signed an agreement yesterday with China’s UnionPay European arm, of the group that has issued more than six billion cards in the communist country. The London-based firm now says it is Europe's only issuer processor with agreements to work with Mastercard, Visa and UnionPay International.