UK digital bank Starling is offering a range of new services to its business customers as it seeks profitability in the next two years.
Starling is now providing unsecured loans of up to £250K and is increasing its overdraft limits to £150K from the £10K it was previously.
In addition, business customers will be offered a Business Toolkit, which provides tools for monitoring cash-flow,tracking invoices, tracking how much tax and VAT is owed, and submitting returns.
The Business Toolkit will cost a monthly fee of £7 for sole traders and £12 for limited companies.
Starling is asking its business customers to sign up for a waiting list for the Toolkit, with the first 500 customers to do so receiving the services free for the next five years.
"Our improved lending facilities and our first premium accounts show that Starling really does mean business when it comes to business accounts,” founder Anne Boden says.
Boden has stated her aim for Starling is to break even by the end of 2020, and return a full year in profit in 2021, with one eye on an IPO on the London Stock Exchange thereafter.
The bank will see growing its business banking interests, which boasts 100,000 accounts at present, as the kernel of this aim.
"It doesn’t matter how many customers you have if you haven’t figured out how to be profitable and are spending huge amounts servicing unprofitable accounts," she told the Daily Mail recently.
"What matters is how people are using your bank."