Starling launches Nearby payments and insurance advice
Starling Bank has officially gone live with Google Nearby payments, which it announced last week as it launched current accounts for underage students.
This feature uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ultrasonic audio to synchronise two mobile phones, which the users have to accept to start sending each other money.
However, Revolut got there before Starling. In May, it unveiled Near Me to let users send and request money from more than just the people they know well.
In parallel with Google Nearby, Starling has partnered with Anorak, the insurance adviser, to offer its customer personalised life insurance advice through Anorak’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities on its API.
Users can connect their accounts to Anorak through Starling’s marketplace, and by analysing its transactions, it suggests the best policy from the major insurers.
Megan Caywood, chief platform officer, Starling Bank, comments: “Starling’s Marketplace is designed to give customers ever greater control of their financial lives. Our new partner Anorak does just this – bringing impartial life insurance to our customers within a few minutes.”
Some other existing partnerships the marketplace has are PensionBee, digital investing services Wealthsimple and Wealthify, mortgage broker Habito, travel insurance provider Kasko and receipts and loyalty partners Tail and Flux.
Anorak participated in Starling’s inaugural Open Banking hackathon in April 2017.
Recently, Starling Bank signed a contract to provide payment services to support the digital bank ambitions of RBS and NatWest
The challenger bank also has launched its own Banking-as-a-Platform APIs to allow businesses to offer their own retail banking payments services, such as card issuing as an API.
