Fintech pioneer Anne Boden is leaving her position as CEO at app-based mostly challenger financial institution Starling, as it broadcasts a greater than doubling of its revenue and a sixfold improve in profit.
Boden based Starling in 2014, and it acquired its banking licence in 2016, launching the following yr. In October 2020, it made its first monthly revenue of £800,000, turning into the primary UK digital challenger financial institution to take action, and it reached fintech unicorn status in 2021.
In its newest financial results, the bank revealed Boden will remain on its board as a non-government director.
Starling reported a doubling of income, which reached £453m for its newest financial yr, in contrast with £216m final yr. Through the 12-month period, which ended March 31, profit was £195m, compared with £32m within the earlier monetary yr.
Last yr, the bank lent £4.9bn in contrast with £three.3bn the previous yr, and buyer deposits increased 17% to £10.6bn.
Boden stated: “Once I started Starling in 2014, I used to be advised no one ever starts a bank, no one wins market share and also you’ll by no means make a profit. Right now’s results prove them incorrect. I have spent almost a decade right here as each the founder and CEO, a twin position which is unique in UK banking. It’s been all-consuming and I’ve beloved each minute of it.
“Now that we’ve grown from being an aspiring challenger to a longtime bank, it is clear the roles and priorities of a CEO and a big shareholder finally differ and require distinct approaches,” she stated. “As Starling continues to evolve and develop, separating my two roles is in the financial institution’s greatest pursuits.”
Starling chief operating officer John Mountain will take over as interim CEO.
Boden is an IT skilled who acquired into banking: armed with a BSc in pc science and chemistry, and an MBA, the now fellow of the Chartered Institute of IT joined Lloyds Bank in the early Nineteen Eighties, when she was “doing fintech before fintech was trendy”.
After Lloyds Bank, her career has included: a interval heading up UK IT at Commonplace Chartered; being one of many unique designers of the Clearing House Automated Funds System (Chaps); a task as a technique and know-how advisor at PWC; restructuring European operations at UBS; holding the worldwide chief info officer job for reinsurance at Aon; and operating enterprise in 34 nations for ABN Amro, and subsequently RBS, when it took over the Dutch financial institution.
Nevertheless it was after leaving RBS in 2011 – to spend time working with startups to seek out out what was happening in financial providers outdoors the large organisations – that she realised how banks wanted to vary. She joined Allied Irish Financial institution as chief operating officer and commenced implementing a few of the concepts she’d had while working with small fintech groups. This was profitable for the financial institution, however Boden needed extra – and realised the one method to get it was by ranging from scratch with a new bank when the time was right.