Starling revs up Engine with City hiring spree
Starling is motoring into 2026 with its foot firmly on the pedal, injecting a fresh pump of gas into the group’s technology arm.
The UK fintech veteran is planning to shift its software-as-a-service (Saas) banking platform into top gear with a major hiring spree across London.
The platform, known as Engine, is a subsidiary of Starling Group that sells the firm’s own core operating system to other banks across the globe. At the wheel is Sam Everington – the man who four years ago was tasked with steering the fintech’s digital banking strategy.
“I joined Starling when it was a twenty-person startup, ten years ago now,” Everington tells Morning Wire.
After just five years at the retail bank, which included his “claim to fame” of pressing the publish button on the Starling mobile app, Everington received the call that made him switch lanes.
“I was phoned and told: ‘We’re thinking of spinning off this software thing, and we want you to run it.’,” Everington says.
“And I took far too long to say yes – about eight weeks to agree – because I loved the job… I had to feel like I was ready to step away from that.”
Now the tech arm’s boss has focus firmly fixed on expansion across the group’s home market.
Engine firing on all cylinders
With Everington at the helm, Engine has plenty of fuel in the tank. The arm contributed a modest £8.7m to group income in 2024, but this marked a 284 per cent year-on-year increase.
It’s an area where growth is drastically outpacing the rest of the group. The bank has tumbled behind its fintech rivals on customer acquisition numbers – a key metric measuring firms in the industry’s performance – in the last year, with its base swelling by ten per cent, half the pace of the previous year.
The expansion in SaaS shows the bank is breaking away from its historical peers Monzo and Revolut, which have focused on extending their lifestyle reach with the launch of mobile plans, booking platforms and subscription plans.
Everington says looking at the SaaS competition landscape, it reminds him of Starling’s early days: “Everyone would assume it’s the other fintechs, but actually where does all the business sit today and all the balances sit today? In the traditional banks.
“And the same is true in core banking.”
He says the “perceived lowest risk path” is often viewed as upgrading with incumbent providers but Engine – the disruptor – is looking to take them on.
Everington counts his competition as “the terminals” citing the FIS, Oracles’ Flex Cube, Fiserv’s “of the world”.
But it’s also an area many fintechs are following suit with Starling to capitalise on.
UK fintech Monese spun off high-margin SaaS arm, XYB, last year and offloaded its consumer arm.
But Everington is hoping to grab a bigger slice of the market, with a “push” for clients across the UK and Europe as well as expansion plans across the US.
“We’ll add another 150 staff [next year] probably globally, of which 100 plus will be in London,” he says, speaking to Morning Wire from Engine’s new office.
The banking platform carved out its own space in a City tower after its rapid expansion burst over the group office’s capacity.
“I think at one point I had 200 people in about 40 desks in the Starling building… Starling has taken more space and continues to grow, and Engine has really, really grown in the last couple of years,” he adds.
Expansion looks to be in near-vision for the year-ahead with top bosses across the group vocal about appetite for mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
“We’re all involved in those discussions and working out where the best place is for it and what the most effective use we can get at the value of those acquisitions,” says Everington, who sits on the bank’s executive team.
“We certainly look at a kind of propositionally complementary M&A… I know Ramanand Declan [chief executive and chief financial officer of the group] have talked about it publicly”.
Starling, Engine and IPOs
Starling is also expected to take on another major deal in near-future as speculation mounts of the fintech’s IPO intentions.
The group spiked City speculation earlier this year after Companies House filings revealed it had created a holding company to own the banking business as well as an intermediate holding company – a necessity to comply with Bank of England regulation on financial safety.
London is tipped to be the likely venue for a public float, but finance boss Declan Ferguson raised eyebrows after previously telling the Financial Times it would also consider New York.
When asked whether Engine would have ambitions beyond an IPO in the wider group, Everington says: “We’re part of the same group today – there’s no decision been made on any IPO after that.”
Pressed on the matter, Everington reiterates “at the moment, there are very real benefits to being part of the same group”.
Saas businesses are valued on revenue multiples, due to the tech they own being highly scalable with high margins. Alternatively banks are valued on a multiple of their equity and capital.
“I think [Engine] can become a peer of the bank from a valuation perspective on the overall value of the group,” Everington adds.
Engine signed Tangerine Bank – one of the “Big 5” banks in Canada boasting $1.4trn in assets – as a customer at the beginning of November.
Everington describes the move as a “milestone” with Tangerine marking “the first Engine customer that is bigger than Starling”.
“That’s a really, really big moment for us.”
The tech boss has one “non-negotiable” criteria that the group agreed to when they put him in the driving seat: “We’re never going to customise Engine for anyone… when we build new capabilities they’re made available to all those banks.”
Asked what he feels about eventually providing the tech for direct rivals to Starling, he references Amazon, who “built AWS for themselves and started selling it off to other retailers”.
“I would love to end up doing that – very, very open to it,” he adds.