App-only bank Starling is coming to the high street thanks to a partnership with the Post Office to offer 'Everyday Banking' services to both its personal and business customers.
The mobile-only bank says the arrangement enables the challenger to provide banking services across the Post Office's 11,500 branches nationwide and at 1500 rural 'banking deserts', where remote communites are left with no access to a bank branch.
Starling customers will now be able to withdraw and deposit cash from a network that provides close proximity to 99.7% of the UK population. Starling says the deal will be paticularly beneficial to business customers who will be able to see near ‘real time’ credit into their account from their cash deposits into Post Offices.
The Post Office, which offers similar proxy banking services to more than 28 of the UK's banks, handled around 125m banking transactions last year, a figure that has risen significantly since 2014 - in part, due to bank branch closures.
Anne Boden, Starling CEO says: “There are now over 1500 communities in the UK with no bank branch, so by combining Starling’s cutting-edge digital banking technology with the unique reach of Post Office branches, we can bring simple and affordable banking back to these Bank Branch Deserts."
According to The Telegraph Starling Bank has secured £10m of new funding from Bahamas-based hedge fund manager Harald McPike as it gears up for a bumper £80m round to challenge rivals such as Monzo. McPike has so far pumped £48 million into Starling to help get the business off the ground from a total of £68 million raised.