Starling data shows users in lockdown are playing video games and shopping online

Starling’s customers are clearly heeding government advice to stay home, as evidenced in the digital bank’s user data.

For instance, Starling customer’s 7-day spend on PlayStation and Nintendo increased by a massive 300 per cent between the week ending 15 March 2020 up until 5 April 2020.

Average transaction values for Starling customers have risen dramatically, with the highest jump being in London where the amount more than doubled from £53.57 on the week ending 22 March 2020 to £107.72 the next week—an increase of 101 per cent.

More evidence for customers staying at home is the huge decrease in money spent on transport—TfL dropped by 93.3 per cent from 15 March to 5 April and Uber saw an 84.3 per cent drop in the average amount spent.

Despite being an essential business as a provider of medicine, Boots saw a huge drop in transactions from Starling customers of nearly 70 per cent between the same dates.

Online shopping for Starling customers is up at record-breaking levels as online transactions now regularly equate to over 50 per cent of the total transactions, with only one day (11 April 2020) seeing in-person transactions exceed those made online.

As a result, Amazon has seen a 39 per cent increase in transactions from Starling customers as have Argos (49 per cent), ASOS (12 per cent), John  Lewis (13 per cent) and Apple (35 per cent) between 15 March 2020 to 5 April.

Another surprising figure for the customer data is that Deliveroo’s sales to Starling’s customers remained flat compared to pre-lockdown figures, with the total transactions actually dropping by 1 per cent over the period.

Starling has recently introduced a number of measures to help its customers who are feeling the pinch of the coronavirus pandemic, such as three-month interest holidays for customers who have lost income and the Connected Card to help those in self-isolation still receive essential items.