I had an inkling you’d ask!
It’s more down to what Algbra does say compared to what Starling doesn’t say. The logic being if Starling were doing those things they’d sure as heck be telling us about them very loudly in today’s society. They’d be big selling points.
The most obvious one are the cards. Algbra’s are made from the same Biodegradable material Triodos use for their cards. Starling’s are partly recycled plastic (arguably green washing, because there’s evidence to suggest Virgin plastic is better than removing recycled plastic from circular industries where they can be used again and again). Algbra don’t, by default, thrust a physical card upon you either. They first gesture towards a digital card with the physical card being optional.
Next is lending. Starling have adopted the industry standard approach, which is exploitative. Algbra don’t and won’t do lending. Credit products, just by their nature, are not really ethical products (though it is possible to do credit in more ethical ways to the industry standard: Triodos and Apple Card being good examples).
Then there’s the infrastructure. Algbra’s infrastructure is carbon neutral (maybe even positive now, I know they’re working on it) through a combination of real change, real action, and a little bit of offsetting for that last mile. Starling’s isn’t and don’t plan to be until 2050, and most of what they’re doing to get there seems to be through offsetting initiatives, rather than real action.
Algbra’s carbon-neutral technology architecture and cloud computing probably allows them to offer SC a completely carbon neutral PaaS. Starling can’t for the simple reason their backend isn’t carbon neutral (or they don’t say it is, and you’d expect they would if it was).
But Starling bank are not nearly transparent enough on these issues to effectively assess, so we have to assume that silence speaks contrary to what we’d hope. Bank.green rate them as only OK in contrast to Monzo (who are rated good) and Algbra (who are fossil free certified) but they don’t share the methodology behind those individual scorings.
Algbra also give their customers the tools to manage own personal impact through banking, Starling don’t. Perhaps these kind of tools are part of what was important to SC when choosing a partner.
Algbra return a significant proportion (10%) of profits to charities and community initiatives. Starling don’t.
Algbra are a certified B-corp. Starling isn’t. That might not much mean much in itself. Starling might already meet or exceed the criteria but that’s hard to check and verify, especially with a bank, so the badge goes a long way in this industry especially.
This page really outlines well what Algbra is about and what you’re getting from them on an ethical standpoint:
Starling don’t have anything like it. So either they’re just not doing much in terms of ESG, or they’re just woefully poor at marketing it. But given all the noise they made about having a recycled plastic card, I’m doubtful it’s the latter. But there’s not enough transparency from them in any case.
Starling are not an unethical bank by any means. They’re actually pretty good, particularly when comparing them to the old guys. Algbra just take things to the next level, and it’s not really something Starling appear to be really trying at. It’s more like an afterthought to them. Monzo are even a step above them on these issues (despite their ill-advised Blackrock partnership). Even the green washing of debit cards is a Mastercard initiative, not a Starling one. They were just (one of) the first U.K. banks to adopt it.