Starling Bank CIO: AI in Fintech at London Tech Week 2025
Drawing more than 45,000 participants across three vibrant days, London Tech Week hosted an array of discussions pivotal to the tech sector, featuring fresh governmental commitments and innovative breakthroughs within digital transformation.
As the leading tech gathering in the UK, London Tech Week took centre stage from 9 to 11 June 2025 at London Olympia.
The event kicked off with a keynote by Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, alongside Nvidia's Co-Founder and CEO, Jensen Huang.
Harriet Rees, the Chief Information Officer at Starling Bank, featured prominently during the event.
Known as a formidable challenger bank in the UK, Starling Bank boasts more than four million retail customers and 500,000 SME customers.
Starling Bank has developed a Software as a Service (SaaS) brand known as Engine, which aims to scale its core banking technologies globally.
At London Tech Week, Harriet joined Technology Magazine Editor Maya Derrick for an engaging fireside discussion titled, 'Turning Bold Ideas Into Real-World Impact.'
Starling Bank has always been a bit of an innovator in this space. How does it feel to be in a room full of innovators?
It’s absolutely incredible.
The energy in this room is palpable and to feel the energy that’s coming from the creativity and technological innovation that we have today is absolutely incredible.
What makes London Tech Week so special for Starling Bank?
With Spending Intelligence, customers will be able to use Gen AI that’s powered by Gemini to query their spending using natural language and voice.
This is groundbreaking because it breaks down any of the barriers that might stop you from confronting and getting to know your spending and financial habits.
We’re really excited to launch this to customers here in the UK.
How important is it for you to put AI in customers’ hands?
It’s so important to us.
We live in a world where AI is already everywhere. Our customers are used to using AI in all aspects of their life.
Itās really important that financial services and peopleās relationship with their banking isnāt excluded from that.
Starling is really excited to be the first UK bank taking this important and pivotal step to bring AI into the hands of customers, to help them manage their money and help them to be good with money.
What else are you excited about here at London Tech Week, where innovation is in abundance?
We hope that with the launch of features like Spending Intelligence that this can really be a pivotal moment.
AI is no longer happening behind the scenes, focusing on pure efficiency and productivity. Rather, itās in the hands of customers so that they can see and feel the impact for themselves.
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