More Starling acquisitions, by the looks of it…
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I really do hope it works and such. I would love a challenger/neo/digital bank to go fully mainstream and show that it can be done.
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The link doesn’t load for me. Is it them offering mortgages or including it in your feed with more of an open banking thing?
No, it’s just the second specialist mortgage provider Starling has bought. I imagine at some point mortgages will be integrated into the app, but I’m surmising probably they’ll mostly be available through an advisor.
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My take is that this is very much a fin thing rather than a tech one. Like Fleet, it’s about growing a mortgage book that can be funded with Starting retail deposits.
It’s only a sample of two, but neither are direct to consumer mortgages, so whether that’s a deliberate play or whether they plan to do something in the app at a later date, who can tell.
I’m not expecting anything particularly revolutionary. More and more Starling seems to be about rebuilding standard banking products with modern tech and a lower cost base. There’s definitely a market for that.
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I think she has it backwards; 2020 has shown people don’t need a branch like they thought, they are closing by the dozen every week. The big boys aren’t where it’s headed.
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It talks about business, because that’s what she’s targeting when she’s talking about competition with Barclays, at least according to this.
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One can overtake Barclays if Barclays collapses and looses most of its clients, rather than Starling actually growing.
Who knows how it will play out. I wonder about Virgin Money, did they grow market share post merge?!
How so? Starling has a 7% market share, Barclays has 15%. Starling’s business banking has grown at a phenomenal pace, aided by the pandemic and BBL scheme. Why shouldn’t they be aiming to overtake Barclays within 5 years? It might be a challenge but certainly doesn’t seem impossible.
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And they won’t have those things to continue at that pace anymore.
They’ve got to 7% incredibly quickly, with help, now it won’t continue like it has.
I haven’t listed to this yet but should be interesting, especially as he’s already had T Blom on the podcast a couple of months ago.
Edit: the start is punchy!
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When she’s talking about Tom and what happened between them, she doesn’t really answer any of the actual questions! Quite a lot of waffle, but it’s clear she’s trying to row back from some of furore she started, not that sincerely in my view.
It’s all in the book - duh! 
I might have taken the whole thing more seriously had she not plugged the book so many times!
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Yh she deflected a lot, it felt to me like she saw Toms interview and then saw dollar signs and a way to sell her book. Having now watched it fully, it was really disappointing how much she didn’t really answer
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Cured my insomnia, I’m pleased to say 
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I don’t expect bankers to be all singing and dancing and fascinating to listen to, but I’m always left thinking a solid PR adviser would help to improve presentation and direct the strategy a bit. Fudging an interview like this is an own goal…
Outside the world of fintech followers, the general population don’t really care that much about the ins and outs of interviews with bankers
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And two days ago…
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