Starling, a UK based digital bank raised $70m from Harald McPike, the founder of QuantRes, a Bahamas-based quantitative investment manager. Starling will compete against the incumbents and the new wave of digital banks such as Atom Bank and Tandem.
Starling Bank has recruited a former regulator and a number of industry heavyweights for its board while raising $70m to spearhead its attempt to move into the UK banking market. The new digital bank, founded by Anne Boden, the former chief operating officer of Allied Irish Bank, is aiming to lure mobile-focused customers and provide a superior current account service to those offered by the incumbent high street banks. The emergence of Starling follows in the footsteps of Atom Bank and Tandem, two digitally-based challengers that received regulatory approval for launch last year, and heralds a new generation of tech-savvy banks.
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