Trading Update - July 2020

Revenue

Starling generated £6.7m for the month of July 2020, which represents an annualised revenue run rate of c. £80m.

This revenue is split £3.9m of net interest income and £2.8m of gross fees and commissions income.

Customer Accounts

Customer numbers continue to outperform estimates, particularly in respect of SME accounts, where Starling has grown by almost 130% in account numbers since the start of the year.

Starling now has more than 1.5 million accounts in total, with almost 200,000 SME accounts and 1.25 million retail accounts. Additionally, Starling has opened almost 90,000 Euro accounts and has just recently launched USD accounts.

Many customers continue to maintain multiple accounts with Starling and the bank currently has over 50,000 open joint accounts.

Starling’s customer base continues to mature and the bank continues to grow more quickly outside of London - the average age of a Starling retail customer is almost 37 years of age and continues to rise.

Just 22% of Starling’s customers are based in London:

Region	% Share
London	22.33
South East	13.66
North West	10.66
East of England	8.74
West Midlands	7.45
South West	7.43
Yorkshire and The Humber	7.19
Scotland	7.04
East Midlands	6.21
Wales	3.55
Other	5.74

The same is true of Starling’s SME customers, with 68.7% of businesses being registered outside of London.

Customer Spending

Lockdown measures, implemented in response to COVID-19, had a temporary impact on Starling retail customer card spend, decreasing spend per active customer by 15-20% from the value of £330 per active customer per month in Q1’20.

With the easing of restrictions, card spending has recovered well and is currently £350 per active customer per month, surpassing the Q1’20 value.

The decreased international travel resulting from COVID-19 has resulted in an associated decrease in international spend, particularly outside of Europe. 88% of retail customer spend in June was domestic, compared to 82% in Q1’20. However, the revenue impact was minimal as Starling has traditionally been used predominantly for UK spending by the majority of customers.

Business card spend has also performed strongly with average card spend of over £700 per active customer in June. This is a significant increase on Q1’20 figures of £550 per active customer per month.

International spend has shown greater resilience with business customers, both within and outside of Europe. Domestic spend constituted 84% of total business card spend in June, which was consistent with Q1’20 figures.

Overall, typical active retail customers credit and debit their accounts by more than £1,500 per month; while for typical active SME customers, the figure is more than £6,500.

Current Account Switch Service

Starling continued to perform well on CASS switches, despite providing no financial incentive to complete a CASS switch, unlike some alternative providers. Over 29,000 customers completed an inbound CASS switch to Starling in H1’20, with over 11 inbound switches for each outbound switch.

Deposits

As at the end of July, Starling had total deposits of £3.05bn.

Starling’s average deposit continues to grow, with increases in average deposit balance per active customer of at least 30% for all primary account types in H1’20.

	Per active customer (December 19)	Per active customer (July 20)
Business	£12,000	£15,250
Sole trader	£1,900	£2,850
Retail	£950	£1,500

Cohort deposit growth

Starling account holders maintain higher average deposit balances the longer their account is open; increasing deposits by 29-54%, depending on account type, between three and nine months after opening their account.

	3 months after account opened	9 months after account opened	% increase
Business	£7,958	£12,243	54%
Sole trader	£1,378	£1,875	36%
Personal	£562	£724	29%

Average deposit balances per active customers at 3 and 9 months after opening their Starling account

Growth in average deposit balance by cohort has been strong across account types. On average, active customers who opened their account in Q4’19 held an average balance that was 65-85% higher than those that opened their account in Q4’18, after 6 months with Starling.

	Quarter account opened
	Q4 2018	Q2 2019
Business	£9,348	£15,385
Sole trader	£1,367	£2,517
Personal	£712	£1,317

Average Deposit Balances of active customers 6 months after opening their Starling account, segmented by the Quarter in which they opened their Starling account

Lending

As of the end of July 2020, Starling has £1,001m of lending on balance sheet, with £98m being retail customer lending and the remaining £903m being SME lending:

	Value (£)
BBLS	£672,959,819
Funding Circle CBILS Forward Flow (SBL share)	£227,750,279
Own CBILS	£2,398,000
Government-backed lending	£903,108,098

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