Why everybody loves Starling Bank

Usually on this podcast we talk a lot about the problems to avoid and examples to learn from. We help each other avoid beartraps in order to speed up learning. This episode is a bit different… Daisy speaks to Ariane Vickman, Head of Public Affairs at Starling Bank about the novel experience of working for an organisation with very few detractors.

Key takeaways include:
- how to use purpose to make practical change
- why simplicity matters, in so many ways
- and why Starling wants to carry other banks along for the ride. 

Find all of our episodes - and full transcripts for each one - at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1121639 

Transcript

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Welcome to Why Everybody Hates You - the audio support group for reputation professionals. If you have any responsibility for how people talk, think and feel about your organisation, then you are in the right place. I’m your host, reputation coach Daisy Powell-Chandler.

Usually on this podcast, we talk a lot about the problems to avoid and examples to learn from. We help each other to avoid bear traps in order to speed up learning. Today, it’s time for something a little different. For this episode, I asked Ariane Vickman, head of public affairs at Starling Bank to talk to me about the novel experience of working for an organisation with very few detractors. Now, of course, none of the reputation professionals I have interviewed really, truly, work for organisations that everybody hates, although I know we all have days when it might feel that way. But there are also a few lucky ones out there, working for companies that are the golden children of their sector. I thought it was time we all heard what that feels like. 

Ariana, it is great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. Now, this is a tricky one, because one of the reasons I've invited you on is because everybody doesn't hate Starling, do they?

Ariane Vickman  

Yes, I think that's right. I think Starling is a really strong brand. It's award winning. We've won the top award at the British Bank Awards, four years running. Last year we won the Which? 2023 banking brand, we also won The Times Money Mentor award for best current account. And, whilst we're quite a new entering the market, compared to a lot of the large banks, we are nearly, we were founded about a decade ago and we launched our first current accounts in 2017, we're now at 4.1 million accounts [NB in the audio Ariane says ‘customers’ but she asked us to correct this to ‘accounts’]. And that's been growing even in the six months that I've been at Starling. So yeah, I think that's a I think that's a really, really nice position to be in.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

It does. I mean, it seems a silly question to ask, but why did you choose to move to Starling, that all sounds delightful, but where's the challenge?

Ariane Vickman  

Well, I suppose the past eight years before joining Starling, I've been working at UK finance, the banking and financial services trade association. And through that, you get the great privilege of working with a range of colleagues across different financial services firms. And I knew that when I made my next career move, I wanted to be at a bank. And when the opportunity at Starling arose, it was really exciting. I knew that Starling had an excellent reputation. Obviously, like I said, it has an award winning bank brand. And when I started working in financial services, one of the first areas I actually worked on, this is nearly a decade ago, was looking at innovation in banking, looking at changing customer habits, looking at the rise of digital banks. So when the opportunity at Starling arose, it was a no brainer. And I think where the challenge is, the process really has been going from a startup, to a scale up, to a systemic bank. And we're on that journey at the moment. And a large part of bringing customers to Starling bank is gaining trust. And I think from a public affairs perspective, what Starling does with customers is the first step on the journey of what I'm doing in terms of advocacy. But it's also reputation building with decision makers. As Starling grows, we play an even greater role in people's lives.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Now, that seems to me an interestingly, nuanced and slightly different challenge compared to one of the more established brands. So in a way, it's harder being a more established brand, because reputation takes a long time to build, but it's very quick to destroy. So you're potentially building up from a much bigger base, a lot of people have expectations of you already. But at least you don't have to convince people that you are a proper grown up bank and explain your business model to them and get name recognition. That's a slightly different set of challenges, isn't it?

Ariane Vickman  

Yeah, it definitely is. But I also think there's a simplicity in it. You know, in day to day banking terms, that means that Starling’s able straightaway to solve people's problems rather than selling them stuff. And I think what makes Starling really attractive, is the fact that we have, you know, brilliant customer service 24/7, we are innovative, fast technology, and we have honest values, and that comes through in not only what we do for our customers with new products or measures to help them, but also how we operate as a business.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

So tell us in a nutshell, what are Sterling's values?

Ariane Vickman  

I think it's very simple. We're looking to change banking for good, and we look to do the right thing.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Are you a full on mantra-type company? Is that up on the wall in HQ?

Ariane Vickman  

Yes, we do have 'doing the right thing' is up there.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Good. I hope there are badges and water bottles as well.

Ariane Vickman  

Yes, and we have socks! 

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

You have socks with your mantra on them! 

Ariane Vickman  

We do. And I've actually been at a parliamentary event not so long ago, where I was greeted by somebody who I'd not met before and they showed off their Starling socks that they were wearing at the event and told me they were their lucky socks. I'll get you some Daisy.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

If I could have 'do the right thing' socks, I would be thrilled. Thank you, it can go next to my pink octopus. Now, when we spoke before the show you were telling a really compelling story about how purpose drives a lot of that behaviour and how it informs the work you do at Starling. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Ariane Vickman  

One of the things that attracted me so much to Starling was how values-driven it was. And I think part of that really comes down to how we were founded. We were the first British bank founded by women, and Boden, and things like equality are really in our DNA. And I think that has an impact across the firm. I think it has an impact in terms of the talent acquisition, who's attracted to work at Starling bank, it then also translates into the type of products that we offer and what, what can Starling do to help customers to help people? And then I think those honest values translate into what kind of business do we want to be? Whether that's saying, you know, we don't directly invest in fossil fuels...

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

It's always really lovely to hear about companies that use values and purpose to guide their decisions and the payoff that has in terms of hiring, but also the way in which customer service improves. But, I think a lot of listeners will be thinking that sounds lovely, but what does it really mean? Can you give us some examples of actions that have been driven by that value? What has actually changed? What do you do differently because of your purpose, or your values, as a company?

Ariane Vickman  

Oh, that's a great question. I think one of the first things that springs to mind is a piece of work that I did when I first joined Starling around a new measure that we'd implemented on our app. So when you make a payment to somebody, you put a reference on it, it's called a payment reference. Every comment we put, you know, dinner or contribution to a gift, but actually, this really sadly, can be a way for an abuser to hurt and send abusive messages to their victim. And what we did was introduce the first of its kind measure, which really quite simply meant that you could hide the payment reference of a certain individual. Starling partnered with Surviving Economic Abuse to get the awareness out there, this optionality was available. We also spoke to decision makers, I was keen that, you know, MPs could use this to speak to their constituents if they needed it. But also, we want to encourage other firms to be able to do that, and provide this, you know, relatively small change, but quite impactful change, and I think that's a really good example of how we spotted a problem, our engineers were like 'how can we fix it' and then we were able to implement it and work with charities. And, you know, now in less than a year of having this optionality available, over 18,000 people have used it, which shows that there is a need, and I think that really shows how internally we see a problem, we want to fix it, we want to make things better for people, but we also want to encourage the wider financial services sector to actually come on board and do that. So, I think that's a really good example of how the values impact what we do day to day at Starling, really for the benefit of our customers, but also wider society.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

And how do you go about the work of making sure that everyone within Starling understands your values, and lives them?

Ariane Vickman  

Well, I think firstly, one of the things that's brilliant about Starling is who we attract. I think a lot of what we do, whether it's looking in the vulnerability space, whether we're looking at, you know, financial education for children, we've got a kite account for children six to fifteen years old, free, to encourage financial education, to encourage money management tools. I think that's really driven through, both in the recruitment process, but also, when you're in Starling, we have regular meetings, where we understand, company wide meetings, where we can understand about different parts of the business. So you're really exposed to what are your engineers doing? What are people in my team at Corporate Affairs doing? What is happening in the wider business, and there's a real awareness there of how everybody at Starling plays a role to deliver for our customers. And what you see is a real passion for individual areas that we are looking to improve for customers.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

And where did that idea of the ‘hide references’ come from? Which part of the business did that stem from to begin with?

Ariane Vickman  

I'm pretty sure that it stemmed from a customer who was in difficulty. And we were thinking, how can we make this problem, less of a problem for the customer? And that's how it developed and actually, you know, that continues that journey of what can we do to help economic abuse survivors? You know, I went to an event and I heard about the value of the exit button. So if you know somebody who is looking to escape a difficult situation is looking for more information, they can just have an exit button on the site, so they're not in trouble if they're looking at a website which may put them in harm's way. And I'm just able to go back and directly speak to the team and say, 'hey, can we look at doing this on the page', where we provide information, and I think that's a really good example of just being efficient and being innovative but also being able to move quickly.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Do you think that that is a benefit that only comes with your kind of DNA? So, being new, being digital, or is that something that you can build into a legacy company?

Ariane Vickman  

Oh, that's a really good question. I think that when you look at a firm like Starling, essentially, Anne was able to start with a blank sheet of paper and build the bank that she wanted, and there wasn't the legacy issues with tech, right, we built our own tech, we're actually taking that tech and, you know, bringing it beyond the UK as part of our software subsidiary program. So, I think we are at an advantage to be able to put the customer first and do so with tech that is built for banking, as it looks today.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

That seems to me to present a real challenge for a lot of people who will be listening to this thinking, this all sounds delightful. Like, I love it, but I work in a big ship, and it turns slowly. Do you have any tips for people who may be working in a company with slightly different DNA, but who wants to take some of that dynamism and that customer centric approach that you're describing, and inject it into an older or larger organism?

Ariane Vickman  

Yeah, so I can see that, you know, bureaucracy, and perhaps a slowness to be able to get what you actually want done is more of an issue for other firms. I often come back to a point, whether it's from a reputation perspective or public affairs perspective, or actually driving customer products to simplicity, doing the right thing. So, if it is in the customer's interest, if it is the right thing to do, then I don't think there is a need for so much bureaucracy, because why complicate matters? If you're advocating for something that is in the customer's interests, or the society's interests, then you don't need that layers of bureaucracy there, whether you're an old banker or a new bank. Let me give you an example. So, the financial services industry has been a strong advocate in protecting consumers from online fraud, financial fraud. And one of the big issues is that at the moment, the financial services sector is the only sector which reimburses customers, right? Fraud is the most prevalent crime in the UK. And one of the big issues is the role that online platforms play, because the majority of fraud that we see, or originates, off of online platforms. And they need to have a greater incentive to work together with other sectors to protect consumers. Let me give you a stat. Last year in the first half of 2023, the data shows that there were, that 77% of fraud, authorised push payment fraud, originated from social media.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Blimey

Ariane Vickman  

And that really reflects what we're also seeing in Starling with our customers. And this authorize push payment fraud, so essentially, that is when your trip to give money to a fraudster. So you authorise a payment, but it turns out that the person receiving the money is a fraudster. The data from UK finance, which shows that 77% of authorised push payment fraud comes from social media, is also reflected in Starlings own data from the same period. And on top of that, we've seen that over 50% of authorised push payment fraud comes from Meta. Now, along with other firms, we have been, you know, in unison, calling for there to be a greater incentive for the government to put greater pressure on the online platforms to help protect consumers. But Starling, we put our money where our mouth is. Over two years ago, we stopped paid spend on Meta until they're able to take greater steps to protect consumers, then we aren't going to do paid spend on there. And I think that's a really strong example of like, it's a very simple thing to do. We're saying that online platforms aren't doing enough to protect consumers, we think they should do more, and as a result of that, we're not going to put paid spend on there. We put our money where our mouth is.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

And does that feed through into the way that your teams are incentivized?

Ariane Vickman  

Yes, absolutely. I think we know that Starling rides on our merit. We don't provide incentives to customers to join us. And I think, actually, we ride on our merit because we know that we're doing, or we're seeking to do the right thing, and we have honest values, and we're seeking to provide a fair and honest service and I see that in my job day to day. One of the things that I've been so struck by since joining Starling, is how often they go into meetings with stakeholders and, whether it's been a minister, whether it's been an advisor, a select committee clark, I will have them say to me, 'oh, by the way, I'm a really happy Starling customer', 'oh, love Starling', 'I love, you know, this feature on the app', and I've been so struck by it. Because, you know, obviously, I'v not worked in a bank before, but I just did not expect that. And I'm not sure, not to sound like, competitive, but I'm not sure that happens to other firms, where they see such support for it. And I think it makes my job easier, because before I go in and say 'okay, we would like to see you do more on X policy issue', actually, they've already bought in to what Starling is seeking to achieve. So I think it's the fact of, we ride on our merit, but there's a simplicity to doing the right thing, and providing products which help customers and their day-to-day banking lives.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Now, I'm almost loath to ask this question, because though it has taken us too many centuries to have a British bank founded by a woman, it really shouldn't make that much difference. But does it make a difference? Does it make a difference having a female boss running a bank?

Ariane Vickman  

I hear you, and I agree with everything you've said. And I do think it makes a difference. I think it's part of the reason that I joined Starling, and I see it in meetings I attend with stakeholders, I go along with my boss who's also a female. And it's happened on more than one occasion, where we've been at a meeting, or we've been on a call, and a female will be on the other side of the call,  and they'll say at the end of it 'by the way, it's been great to do this meeting with all women. It's not very often I've been doing this meeting and had all women'. And that's happened on more than one occasion, which I think is really striking, but we do have fantastic female representation at a senior level. I also think it makes an impact in terms of what we try to do to support women to make it easier for them to break down those barriers. You know, we have a number of partnerships, we have a partnership with Women Returners to help women who are returning to work after a period off, such as having children. We partner with Code First Girls to provide free coding support. And you know, we've got people working at Starling now who went through that program. We partner with Smart Works, to help women, you know, get prepared for an interview, and we just had recently, everybody's been bringing in clothes to donate to Smart Works. But also more widely, we're looking to support, you know, women and girls into football. We sponsored the UEFA 2022 Women Euros, we're also the principal partner for Southampton Women's Football Club, and the equality that those players have training in the same field, using the same changing rooms. So that's part of why we partnered with Southampton Football Club. But we're also looking to get kits out to get more girls into football at the grassroots level. It's not just about being at the top. And I think all of these partnerships are really reflective of how we were founded, who's attracted to work at Starling, and, you know, I'm not just talking about you know, the number of women coming to work, but I think also about, you know, the the men that come to work at Starling, they really believe in that equality is in Starling bank's DNA. There's no question about that.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Yes, absolutely. And I know, I feel like it's only fair to mention that you don't just invest your sustainability or advocacy money into women's causes, you've also done quite a lot of work in sustainability, haven't you?

Ariane Vickman  

Yes, exactly. We're an active member of several organisations working in collaboration to tackle climate change. So we've had a partnership with Trillion Trees, which looks to plant, I think it's like 100,000 trees around deforestation. We're also partnered with the National Trust, we were also a founding member of TechZero, we don't invest directly in fossil fuels. Our social, our honest values, and doing the right thing goes across different areas of society where we're seeking to help make a difference, whether that's for our customer, or whether that's more widely.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

Brilliant, thank you so much for speaking to me today Arianne. Lots to take away from here and lots of interesting features, particularly in terms of creating simplicity, making it very quick for feedback from customers to reach through to programming teams and the leadership and also showing up and trying to do the right thing in the world to make broader change, and the power of having a purpose to bring everyone together in service of that. So thank you so much for speaking to me, and have a great afternoon.

Ariane Vickman  

Thanks so much Daisy. It's been brilliant.

Daisy Powell-Chandler  

That’s everything from us. A big thank you to my guest, Ariane Vickman, head of public affairs for Starling Bank, for sharing some really practical examples of the power of purpose to change how organisations act. Starling’s clear purpose changes the type of people they hire, and empowers employees to act upon problems that they spot, knowing that Starling can solve them. I also love their enthusiasm for convening the sector to make change even more impactful. 

Do you work in a legacy company that is trying to inject this approach? How do you make change even when it’s hard? I would love to hear about your experiences, so please, get in touch on Twitter or LinkedIn. And if you have enjoyed this episode, I hope you will tell your colleagues, and perhaps write us a review on your usual podcasting app. I know it is boring, but it really does help new listeners to find the show. Thank you, as always, for listening to Why Everybody Hates You, and remember, you are not alone.