THIS WOMAN WILL CHANGE THE WAY WE BANK

Anne Boden, founder and CEO of Starling Bank, started her career behind the counter at Lloyds Bank. She talks to Kalpana Fitzpatrick about her journey

Financial expert Anne Boden discusses her journey to success

Not many people wake up at age 54 and decide to start their own bank. Yes, bank! But in 2014, this is exactly what Anne Boden decided to do. With ambitions greater than your average entrepreneur, it didn’t take much for Boden to ditch her high-flying international career in finance to launch Starling, one of the UK’S first digital banks. Boden knew the banking industry was in a shambles and someone had to change it; that someone was going to be her. She didn’t think for one minute that it would fail. The glaring mistakes that banks were making were obvious to her, and she knew Starling would be a success because of that. ‘This was my time to start my own business,’ she reflects today.

THE LIGHT-BULB MOMENT

When she joined Allied Irish Banks as chief operating officer in July 2012, Boden spent a lot of time just talking to customers. ‘I realised banks could do better,’ she says. ‘They needed to be far more customer focused. What was actually happening was that banks across the world were pretending that the financial crisis hadn’t happened, and were trying to go back to the way things were before. But people had changed, technology had changed, and I saw that it was possible to

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WHY STARLING?

Because it’s a chatty little bird, boisterous and sociable, that sometimes tries to invade other territories. Starling Bank wanted to disrupt the banking marketplace in a similar fashion by invading the territory of the big companies.

‘Starling has changed the competitive landscape,’ says Boden, ‘and it’s making a change for the better by modernising banking. We haven’t just created a new bank; we have created a whole new industry.’ With Starling’s app, users are able to see real-time transactions, split bills with ease and even send a nudge to anyone who owes them money. It has features that the high-street banks were not delivering.

HOW DID THAT GO DOWN WITH THE INDUSTRY?

Despite the challenges, scepticism and bureaucracy, Boden was able to raise $70m in funding and obtained a full banking licence in 2016. After setting up in the City of London, she now has a team of 600 people and plans to take Starling Bank into Europe next year: first stop, Ireland.

Oh, and last year, she received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to fintech (financial technology).

WHERE DOES THIS MONEY SAVVINESS COME FROM?

The open attitude of her hardworking parents – she’s the daughter of a steelworker and a department store worker. Family finances were never a taboo subject around the dinner table: Boden knew what her parents earned from a young age and understood what they could afford, what the family spent their money on and how they saved. There’s a lesson there for every parent! ‘We weren’t particularly welloff,’ she says, ‘but we were very careful with money, and we had a relatively nice life because we always looked after our money.’

SO, HER GREATEST LIFE LESSON WOULD BE…?

We all need to engage more with our finances, especially women, and be financially independent. ‘Unfortunately, women can often find themselves having to manage their finances after being divorced or widowed, and that’s at the very time when they’re least prepared and least able to cope – so it’s important to be in control. You can enjoy reading the financial pages, you can take an interest and use your knowledge to get more out of life. There’s a lot of information out there to help you educate yourself about money. Money isn’t a taboo and we should all engage with it.’

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

‘The world is going to change, and how we pay for things will change,’ says Boden. ‘We’ll see more automation and new ways to shop. Some of these changes may well be useful when we get older, such as self-drive cars, for example. But we’ll only be able to take advantage and enjoy them if we have enough money. So take control of your finances, take an interest in money, have a career plan and save for that pension so you can enjoy what the future has to bring.