Starling Bank: Five things that defined Anne Boden’s time at the top
The chief and founder of digital lender Starling Bank Anne Boden will hand over the reins to her number two today as she steps back from the top job after nine years.
Boden has undoubtedly blazed a trail in British banking. The Swansea native remains the only woman to have launched a bank in the UK and has led Starling to become the first of the upstart fintech lenders to reach profitability.
But her time at the helm has not been without controversy. Boden set tongues wagging last month when she made the unexpected move to step back, citing a desire to split up her roles as a top shareholder and chief executive. The FT has since reported she quit the job after an investor clash., which Starling Bank denies She will remain with the firm as a non-executive director and retain her hefty stake.
Starling’s post pandemic period has also been plagued by questions over its move to splash out state-backed covid emergency loans. The questions have triggered a high-profile spat with one former minister – a row that has followed Boden round wherever she goes.
Here, Morning Wire looks back on five key things that have defined the leadership of one of Britain’s most high-profile entrepreneurs.
Banking trailblazer
Former RBS banker Boden became – and remains to this day – the only woman to launch a bank in the UK when she founded Starling in 2014.
The challenger bank was among a crop of upstart lenders to emerge in the post-financial crisis era, eventually winning its full licence in July 2016 and securing a first funding injection of £48m.
Interestingly, joining the firm not long after its foundation was a young Tom Blomfield, who left the firm in an acrimonious split in 2015 and went on to found rival Monzo.
Starling’s growth has won Boden the plaudits of the British state. In 2018 she bagged an MBE for services to fintech (and in 2022 bagged the even more coveted Morning Wire Business Personality of the Year Award).
She was then parachuted in by Liz Truss to head up the Women-led high-growth enterprise taskforce in 2022 to try and supercharge female entrepreneurship in the UK.
Profits
Boden’s leadership has been defined by its more restrained approach to growth and more ruthless approach to profits than its peers. The bank was one of the first of its crop of digital lenders to swing into the black when it reported full-year pre-tax profits of £32.1m for the year to the end of March 2022.
In May this year, as Boden announced her departure, the firm announced a six-fold increase in those pre-tax profits to £195m.
Covid questions
A feature of Starling’s post-covid period has been a barrage of questions over government-backed loans it fired out to businesses through the pandemic.
Starling was a notable fast mover to step up to the state-backed Bounce Back Loan scheme. The firm had lent just £23m in 2019 from its own book, but by mid 2021 had dished out some £1.6bn of BBL lending.
However, the shaky nature of some of the loans it dished out have since been under the spotlight.
The result has been a high profile spat with former Tory fraud minister Lord Agnew who has accused the bank of failing in its fraud checks and using the scheme “against the government’s and taxpayer’s interests”. Boden has repeatedly rebuffed the claims, but the row has taken some of the shine off the previously do-no-wrong darling fintech firm.
Customer top spot
Even with those covid question marks, Starling has dominated customer rankings under Boden’s leadership.
The digital lender topped the leaderboards of Which? and Money Saving Expert last year and made the top ten of best customer service in the UK of any industry.
Those came amid a host of other gongs including Britain’s Best Current Account for the five years year running and Banking Brand of the Year by Which?
Mystery listing
As with its peers, Starling has been the subject of constant chatter over its eventual listing. Given Boden’s honours and role on a host of taskforces, it would be an almighty snub for the firm to look elsewhere.
Starling said it was angling for a 2022 listing but roiled public markets have since scuppered those plans. Speaking to reporters at her departure press conference in May, she stayed shtum and said the plans were on ice until markets settled.
Boden’s time in numbers:
- Total number of accounts: 3.6 million, including more than 500,000 business accounts
- Share of retail banking sector: 2.4 per cent
- Share of business banking sector: 9.4 per cent
- Amount on deposit: £10.6bn
- Total lending: £4.7bn
- Headcount: 2,700
- Offices: Five: Cardiff, Dublin, London, Manchester and Southampton.