Starling Bank: questions over volume of customers taken on during Covid crisis

More than tripling of business customer base has raised questions about online lender's ability to run proper checks

The online bank singled out by a former government minister over the effectiveness of its counter-fraud measures was onboarding" an average of 15,000 new business customers a month during the Covid crisis, according to analysis by the Observer.

Figures from Starling Bank's last annual report show the eight-year-old lender has grown its business customer base from 87,000 before the pandemic to 330,000 business accounts as of last spring.