Starling Bank plans to take its BaaS platform Engine to APAC
UK challenger Starling Bank is reportedly in talks to expand its Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform Engine to the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
Starling is reportedly in talks to take Engine to APAC
Nick Drewett, Starling’s chief commercial officer, told CNBC last week that the firm is in talks to deploy Engine with an undisclosed Asian bank, adding that the bank plans to utilise the BaaS offering to launch business accounts catering to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rather than retail banking services.
“We’re quite happy with the pace that we can absorb the implementation — and that will accelerate with every implementation. It will never completely be cut and paste, but it will be able to accelerate as we become more material,” Drewett tells CNBC in an interview.
Engine is Starling Bank’s subsidiary, launched in March 2022, which offers banks and financial institutions around the world the ability to create new propositions or brands using Starling’s core technology.
Starling had previously been plotting to expand into Europe by acquiring a banking licence from the Central Bank of Ireland, but it withdrew its application in July last year amid a rethink of its expansion plans, instead looking to focus on taking Engine global.
