Starling is training its own AI on 15 billion transactions
Hey Digital Banking Fanatic!
What if your bank could train AI on billions of transactions without sending that data to a global cloud provider? That’s what Starling Bank is working towards.
The UK digital bank is becoming the first UK bank to train a banking-specific Transactional Foundation Model on sovereign cloud infrastructure, partnering with NVIDIA and UK cloud provider Civo. The model, trained on more than 15 billion anonymised transactions, will power a new intelligence layer called Starling Intelligence.
The rollout is planned for early 2027, starting with improvements to fraud detection before expanding to the bank’s AI-powered Starling Assistant. The idea is to build AI that understands the patterns of real financial activity, while keeping the training and hosting infrastructure within the UK.
It’s an important shift: banks are moving beyond simply adopting general-purpose AI towards building models around their own data, with control over where that data lives.
And below, find out why Klarna’s legacy goes beyond payments, with former employees founding 75 startups, more than Spotify or Revolut, according to Dealroom.
Here’s what else is happening in digital banking today👇
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
💡 Klarna is building a lot more than a payments business. According to Dealroom, former Klarna employees have gone on to found 75 startups, putting it ahead of Spotify (67) and Revolut (58). And FinTech keeps showing up across the rankings, with N26, Wise, Adyen, Monzo and Zettle also making the list. Seven FinTech companies feature in the top 28, together linked to 265 startups founded by former employees. That’s quite a legacy to leave behind.
NEWS
🌐 Splitit launches the Splitit World Mastercard for midsize banks and credit unions. Cardholders set a spending threshold in the app, so larger purchases automatically split into predictable monthly payments while everyday spending is paid in full within 30 days. Splitit powers the installment technology and an AI enabled mobile experience that banks embed in their own apps.
🇺🇸 Selini Capital joins zerohash's network of institutional liquidity providers. Selini will provide continuous liquidity on zerohash's order book and stream quotes into its RFQ system. zerohash says partners gain deeper institutional liquidity and more efficient execution without added complexity.
🇬🇧 Starling Bank builds an AI model on UK sovereign cloud infrastructure. The bank is training a transactional foundation model on more than 15 billion anonymised transactions, using Civo’s UK cloud infrastructure. The aim is to build its own AI layer for banking services, starting with capabilities such as fraud detection.
🌍 Mollie offers €50 million in equity to build banking for AI agents. Under the offer, a founding team gets Mollie's infrastructure, a budget and access to 350,000 customers from day one. The equity is tied to milestones, and the team keeps full project ownership.
🇩🇪 Revolut launches Revolut Mobile in Germany, in partnership with telecom provider 1GLOBAL. The plan offers unlimited calls, texts and data for €14.99 a month, with the first 120 GB at full speed and 2 Mbit/s afterwards. The offer rolls out gradually to more than 3 million customers over the coming weeks.
🇪🇺 Payward agrees to acquire Saldo Bank, expanding its European banking ambitions. The Kraken parent is buying the Lithuanian-licensed digital bank to add regulated banking capabilities, including deposits, lending, card issuance and SEPA payments, bringing traditional banking services closer to its crypto platform. The deal remains subject to regulatory approval.
🌍 EWG selects ClearBank to strengthen its digital payments infrastructure. The partnership gives EWG access to diversified payment rails and faster payments. EWG is working toward offering clients Jersey centric sort codes and EU IBANs.
🇬🇧 NatWest and NVIDIA improve AI speech recognition for UK banking customers. Testing across regional accents and everyday banking language reduced misheard words by 20%, helping make voice-driven financial tools more accurate. The work supports NatWest’s conversational Spending Insights experience.
🇧🇩 bKash accelerates lending expansion to reach its 85 million customers. The SoftBank backed mobile financial services provider plans a shift from payments toward credit. CEO Kamal Quadir expects lending to deliver stronger performance as it scales.
🇺🇸 Bank of America faces a $1.2 billion penalty over money-laundering control failures. US regulators say the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions and fell short on anti-money-laundering safeguards. The penalty includes a record $750 million assessment from the OCC, alongside a separate sanctions settlement. The action puts financial crime compliance back in focus for major banks.
🇺🇸 JPMorgan Chase blocks outside AI agents, like Muse and Instinct, from directly accessing accounts. CEO Jamie Dimon told analysts on Tuesday that external agent access is too risky for clients and the bank.
🇦🇪 Standard Chartered unveils a cryptocurrency trading solution for affluent clients, the first such offering by an international bank in the UAE. Eligible clients can buy and sell Bitcoin and Ether directly through their existing bank accounts, with no separate wallet required. The VARA regulated solution was built with SC Ventures backed Zodia Markets.
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