Starling Bank launches ‘bills manager’ feature

UK-based Starling Bank has introduced a new feature called ‘bills manager’ to help customers improve the way they manage and pay for bills by matching specific bills against allotted savings.

The bank said that its new feature is one of the most requested by customers and will allow them to have a direct debit or standing order taken from money set aside in their ‘savings spaces’, rather than from their main account balance.

‘Bills manager’ is available to all personal and joint current account holders with immediate effect and is free to use.

Anne Boden, CEO of Starling Bank, said: “Our customers asked for this feature and therefore we created it. Enabling them to better manage their money is our number one goal.”

On the Starling Bank app, ‘savings spaces’ is where customers can choose to set money apart from their main balance for specific savings goals.

Opting into ‘bills manager’ enables Starling Bank’s customers to select which direct debits or standing orders they would like to pay from each ‘space’ and they will then receive a notification when those bills have been paid.

Should there be insufficient funds in a customer’s bills manager space to make a scheduled payment, Starling said it will send the customer three notifications the day before the payment is due and twice on the payment due date and if the funds are still missing at that point, then the bill will not be paid.

Starling Bank’s chief technology advocate Jason Maude will give his views on the future of payments at the Open Banking Expo UK Confex in London on 4 November. View the agenda here.