As summer draws to a close, we share a few of our recent highlights. Starling now has more than 2.4 million open accounts, including 400,000+ business accounts.

Our deposits are almost £4 billion for business account holders and a typical Starling business customer, in credit, has an average balance of more than £13,000. For personal and joint accounts, the average balance is more than £2000 and the total deposit value is more than £2.8 billion.

Since May 2021, we’ve announced:

• Lending under the government-backed Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS)
• Additional features for Starling’s Kite card for kids, including app login
• Dark mode for iOS
• A refresh of the Spaces feature
• New card details screen for iOS
• Additional fraud prevention measures
• Partnerships with several British events and venues, including the Pub in the Park festival, Brighton Pier and Kew Gardens
• A partnership with Instavolt, an electric vehicle charging network, that boosts our commitment to sustainability
• The launch of a new image library as part of our #MakeMoneyEqual campaign
• Our latest annual report and accounts, showing a 600% rise in revenue for the period December 2019 to March 2021
• The £50 million acquisition of specialist buy-to-let lender Fleet Mortgages - our first acquisition.

Awards round-up

Since May, we’ve won awards at:

• The FS Forum’s Product & Service Innovation Awards - Innovator of the Year 2021 and Best Innovation in Financial Inclusion (May 2021)
• Best British Bank Awards - Best British Bank, Best Current Account, Best Business Account and Best App (July 2021)
• UK FinTech - Fintech of the Year (July 2021)
• The Marketing Society Awards - Business to Business marketing campaign, created with Wonderhood (July 2021)
• Open Banking Expo - Best Customer Experience for our Marketplace (July 2021)

#MakeMoneyEqual

As part of our #MakeMoneyEqual campaign, we’ve created a new image library to better represent women and money. Too often, women are pictured with pennies and piggy banks, while men are shown with notes.

We want to call out these inequalities and help publications improve their images of women and money, which they can do using our free image library.

Recovery Loan Scheme

Starling offers government-backed loans of £25,001 to £250,000 through the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS). Each application is reviewed and priced individually and you don’t have to be a Starling business customer to apply.

The scheme follows on from the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) and Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), both of which came to an end in April 2021. You can still apply for RLS even if you’ve applied for or received a loan through BBLS or CBILS.

Additional Starling Kite features

Kite is a debit card for children aged 6-16, set up from a parent or guardian’s personal or joint Starling account. Children with Kite cards can now login to their own version of the Starling app, which means that they can check their balance and receive real-time spending notifications to their iPad or smartphone.

Growing fast

Our latest annual report, covering the 16 months to the end of 31 March 2021, showed that revenue rose by nearly 600% to £97.6 million, from £14 million for the previous period, ending 30 November 2019. Loss after tax more than halved to £23.3 million from £52.1 million.

Results from Starling’s latest trading update, covering the three months to the end of June, show that revenue reached £42.8 million in the period, putting our annualised revenue run rate at more than £170 million.