Insights: What does it take to build the bank of the future? With Engine by Starling

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Hey, folks, David Brear here, CEO of 11FS. Here's something you might not know about me. I get a lot of people trying to impersonate me online, fake profiles, scam emails, the lot. And a big part of that comes from data brokers, hundreds of them, quietly collecting and selling your personal information. Your phone number, email, home address, job title, all out there and all fueling identity theft, scam calls, and spam. If you've ever searched your own name online, hands up, who hasn't? You'll know how exposed you really are. That's why we've partnered with Incogni. They contact 230 plus data brokers and tell them to delete your information properly and legally under GDPR and CCPA. Doing it yourself would take hundreds of hours. Incogni automates the whole thing and keeps working with repeat removal requests if your data reappears.
I tried it and within days saw brokers deleting my data. You can even protect your family members too. Fintech Insider listeners get 60% off an annual plan. Just head to incogni.com/fintechinsider and use code Fintech Insider. And yes, it's risk free with a 30 day money back guarantee. You'll find the link in the description.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:14)
Somewhere between the first drive and settling in at the clubhouse, golf becomes more than just a game.
Lululemon Golf Gear is built for the full range of your day. Light layers as you head to early tee times. Flexible fits move naturally with your swing. Our fabrics wick sweat and block UVs for hours in the sun. And refined cuts carry you well into the 19th hole. Shop golf gear in stores and online at lululemon.com.

**Ross Gallagher** (1:58)
Hello and welcome to Fintech Insider Insights. I'm Ross Gallagher, Head of Consulting at 11FS. Today, we're joined by two leaders from Engine by Starling, the banking technology business born out of Starling Bank's own journey to becoming one of the UK's most successful digital banks. Joining us are Sam Everington, CEO of Engine by Starling, and Jody Bhagat, President of North America at Engine by Starling.
Now, Engine has taken the technology that powered Starling's rise and transformed it into a standalone proposition, helping banks around the world modernize their infrastructure, launch products faster, and navigate an increasingly complex technology landscape. As banks grapple with legacy systems, AI ambitions, involving customer expectations, and growing competitive pressure, Engine sits at the heart of some of the industry's most important technology decisions.
Sam, Jody, first of all, welcome to the show. It's a real pleasure to have you both. How are you guys doing?

**Sam Everington** (2:59)
Yeah, good, thank you. It's great to be here today.

**Jody Bhagat** (3:02)
Thank you for having us, Ross.

**Ross Gallagher** (3:03)
Yeah, real pleasure. Thank you guys for coming on. Well, look, it's great to have you both here to talk about the Engine proposition. I think we sort of summed it up there pretty well in the intro, but playing, I think, sort of right at the intersection of a number of the sort of key trends that are impacting our industry at the moment.
Sam, maybe it's worth rewinding a little bit. Engine started life as the technology that powered Starling Bank itself. It would be maybe good to get a little bit of the origin story. Sort of at what point did you realize that you built something that could become a standalone business maybe in its own right?

**Sam Everington** (3:41)
Yeah, it's a great question. We clearly built a successful business in Starling. I've been there for 10 years now, joined a 20-something person startup.
We could see in Starling the impact it was having on customers in the UK. The kind of two things we're very proud of, sitting right at the top of the customer satisfaction tables, and the economics of the bank, ultimately operating that very efficiently, despite that customer's light. A lot of that came from the speed, the agility, the pace at which we could release products and capabilities to support customers and be responsive and adaptive to their needs. There's a whole list of kind of industry first, things Starling's done and where we've moved the market forward and other banks are caught up on us. That's clearly something we're very proud of. And then, Starling is born out of really assessing ourselves, where did the strengths lie, is their business, and the experience we have running these delightful digitally native kind of customer-facing journeys, but also the operating process that sits behind a genuinely digital first bank and uniquely doing that profitably. One of the first digital banks anywhere to reach profitability. And inevitably, that led to study tours for want of a better word, ex-cos and boards turning out from different banks and other markets with their favorite consulting firms and questions to understand what Starling had done differently and what should have kept the same.