Starling Bank aims to float on stock market in 2022

Alan Sayer
July 23, 2021 1:49 pm

Starling Bank, a digital bank based in the UK, has announced plans to float on the stock market close to the end of 2022. These plans aren’t set in stone at the moment, with the company admitting that it could be early 2023 by the time this aim is carried out.

It comes after the bank managed to cut down the pandemic-led losses it had been making and move towards profitability. Between November 2019 and March 2021, Starling bank made a loss of £23.3 million. This is less than half the loss that it made from November 2018 to November 2019.

On top of this, the bank has announced that it managed to break even during October 2020. Leading on from there, it made a profit in all subsequent months. This means that in the second quarter of 2021, Starling Bank was fully profitable, having made a profit during every month of that period.

The improved financial results are due to Starling Bank continuing to lend to customers during the uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic. It managed to increase its customer numbers from around 1 million to 2.1 million. This increase in customers equated to an increased lending amount of £2.2 billion. 

Starling Bank aims to float on stock market in 2022

Revenue for the bank also rose sharply during the latest accounting period. The bank posted revenue of almost £100 million, an increase of nearly seven times the previous revenue of £14 million.

These improved financial results combined with relaxed laws around going public means that Starling Bank is looking into the opportunity to float. After being valued at £1.1 billion in an initial round of funding, it’s expected that the bank will raise a higher figure by floating on the stock market. 

Declan Ferguson, the deputy CFO for Starling Bank, had this to say about the current trajectory of the company:

The most significant milestone for us was achieving profitability in October last year. We are very much on track to post full year profitability.

Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs invested  £50 million in Starling Bank. The investment is said to be an expansion of Starling’s inundated £272 million Series D funding cycle, which was announced in March 2021 and valued the bank – pre-money – in excess of £1.1 billion.

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Having gained a degree in economics, Alan entered the world of financial services starting his career in London and then moving to New York for a number of years. His first post at a City bank saw him establish a reputation as an forex trader. Having recently returned from New York after eight successful years, Alan is now a prosperous trader in his own right concentrating on commodities and forex.
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