Stefan Klestil

• Boden believes that while PSD2 and Open Banking are important, the marketplace model is "a step beyond that". Starling Bank has always been compliant with these regulations since it was founded, making it better placed than most incumbents to make good decisions about how best to serve its customers through data. However the offering of third-party products is "not to be done lightly", or dismissed as an add-on: the Starling Bank marketplace proposition is continually and carefully assessed to manage its risk, while fulfilling all its regulatory requirements. 
• Klestil wonders whether the incumbents will eventually catch up to their digital counterparts in terms of making these marketplace partnerships, but Boden believes that the model will outrun them all. While big banks will try to copy every feature that digital banks currently offer, they won't be able to copy the neobank cost-base. At the moment, Starling Bank has more than 90 firms queuing to negotiate partnership deals for its marketplace. By the end of 2018, Boden hopes to have 25 of those partnerships go live. Once business accounts are live, Starling hopes to expand its marketplace model to cater to its business customers, too.
• While a lot of people have been trying to figure out how GDPR and Open Banking might work together, Boden believes that GDPR won't have a large effect on digital banks. Being digital first and foremost means that they're already ahead of the game. By September 2019, all banks will have to catch up in line with regulation.

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