# Starling Bank

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/starling-bank/  
**Website:** https://www.starlingbank.com/  
**APIs profiled:** 13

Starling Bank is a UK app-only digital challenger bank founded in 2014 by Anne Boden and headquartered in London, holding a full UK banking licence and authorised and regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority (FSCS-protected, SWIFT SRLGGB2L). It is a privately held company - not a mutual and not publicly listed - backed by investors including Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and the Qatar Investment Authority, and it also licenses its core banking platform as Software-as-a-Service under the "Engine by Starling" brand. As an FCA-authorised ASPSP it participates in UK Open Banking / PSD2, but Starling is best known for its own developer-friendly, bespoke RESTful Developer API (accounts, transaction feed, payments, payees, savings goals/spaces, cards, mandates, and identity) served over OAuth2 at api.starlingbank.com with a full sandbox, alongside its Open Banking Read/Write (AIS, PIS, CBPII) conformance to the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) standard secured with FAPI-grade OAuth2/OIDC, mutual-TLS, and PSD2 strong customer authentication. Starling is a challenger bank and is not one of the nine CMA9 mandated banks.

## Kin Score — 53.5 / 100 (developing)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 53.5).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 92.6 |
| Contract Quality | 37.1 |
| Governance | 30.3 |
| Contract Governance | 30.3 |
| Operational Transparency | 28.9 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 28.6 |
| Commercial Clarity | 78.6 |
| Access Clarity | 78.6 |

Regulatory layer — **Banking & Open Finance**: 72.2 (matched via tags).

## Agent readiness — 35.7 (agent-ready)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | yes |
| Agentic Access | no |
| Reversibility Documented | na |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | yes |
| Idempotency | na |
| Error Semantics | documented |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | no |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | yes |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | na |

## Access

Free · Self-serve developer signup with sandbox — onboarding: self-serve, pricing: free, trial: yes (confidence: high).

## APIs (13)

- **Starling Accounts API** — Bespoke Starling Developer API for retrieving a customer's accounts, account identifiers (sort code / account number), and balances. Served over OAuth2 at the api.starlingbank.c...
- **Starling Account Holder API** — Returns account-holder profile information - the type of account holder (individual, business, joint, sole trader), name, and registered details - from the Starling bespoke Deve...
- **Starling Transaction Feed API** — The Starling transaction feed (feed items) API exposes real-time transaction activity, feed-item detail, spending categories, receipts, and attachments for an account over the b...
- **Starling Payments API** — Initiate and manage domestic and scheduled payments, payment orders, and standing orders from a Starling account through the bespoke Developer API, secured with OAuth2 and payme...
- **Starling Payees API** — Create, list, and manage payees (beneficiaries) and payee accounts used when initiating payments from a Starling account via the bespoke Developer API.
- **Starling Savings Goals API** — Create and manage Savings Goals (Spaces), add or withdraw money, and round-up transfers within a Starling account through the bespoke Developer API.
- **Starling Cards API** — Retrieve card details and control card settings - enabling or disabling the card and per-feature controls (ATM, online, mobile wallet, magstripe, gambling) - via the Starling be...
- **Starling Mandates API** — List and cancel direct debit mandates on a Starling account through the bespoke Developer API.
- **Starling Identity API** — Returns the identity and token/authorising-individual context for the authenticated Starling user, including the scopes granted to the access token, via the bespoke Developer API.
- **Starling Open Data API (OBIE Standard)** — UK Open Banking Open Data API - PUBLIC, unauthenticated reference data (personal and business current accounts, and, for banks with a physical estate, ATMs and branches) modelle...
- **Starling Account and Transaction Information API (AIS, OBIE Read/Write)** — UK Open Banking Read/Write Account and Transaction Information (AIS) API for accessing account, balance, transaction, and product data as an FCA-authorised ASPSP, conformant to ...
- **Starling Payment Initiation API (PIS, OBIE Read/Write)** — UK Open Banking Read/Write Payment Initiation (PIS) API for initiating domestic and other payments as an FCA-authorised ASPSP, conformant to the OBIE Read/Write standard and sec...
- **Starling Confirmation of Funds API (CBPII, OBIE Read/Write)** — UK Open Banking Read/Write Confirmation of Funds (CBPII) API allowing a card-based payment instrument issuer to confirm whether funds are available, as an FCA-authorised ASPSP, ...

## Security (3)

- **Starling Bank Authentication** — oauth2/http · 3 schemes
- **Starling Bank Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC
- **Starling Bank Vulnerability Disclosure** — Hackerone · security.txt · contact published

## Tags

Financial-Services, Banking, Open Banking, PSD2, OBIE, United Kingdom, Payments, Account Information, Challenger Bank, Fintech, FAPI

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/starling-bank/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.