Starling Bank will cut roughly 130 jobs in a reorganization and automation push, a spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.
“We recently told colleagues that we are changing parts of our banking team structure to simplify how we operate, reduce instances of duplication, and drive further product delivery at pace,” the spokesperson told Banking Dive. “We have begun a period of consultation with colleagues whose roles may be affected by these changes.”
“A key factor in our competitive edge over legacy banks is our agility; our ability to test, launch, learn and reorganise at pace,” the spokesperson told Banking Dive.
The restructuring was in part due to the end of several major projects, a spokesperson told the Financial Times, and because the bank is using artificial intelligence more operationally. Financial Times first reported the job cuts on July 3.
Job cuts amount to approximately 3% of Starling’s 4,000 employees. The cuts only apply to the banking team, the spokesperson said, as Starling intends to add employees on its technology team.
AI-related job cuts abound in the fintech and banking sector this year, with Block swapping 4,000 workers for AI in February and Coinbase doing the same for 700 workers in May. Standard Chartered expects its headcount to drop by 7,800 by 2030 as part of an AI push. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf called AI’s effect on headcount “complicated” in May.
AI was the leading reason for U.S. job cuts in March, April, May and June, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report earlier this month. AI has been cited in 101,743 cut announcements this year, or roughly 23% of all cuts, according to Challenger.
That’s a sharp increase from prior years. Challenger began tracking AI as a distinct reason for job cuts in 2023, and it’s since been cited in 173,568 job cut announcements – meaning more than half of AI-related job cuts have happened since the start of 2026.
Starling employees are largely based in the U.K., with significant numbers in its London headquarters as well as Cardiff, Wales, as of 2022. London is the most exposed city in the developed world to AI-job cuts, The Telegraph reported Tuesday, citing a report from The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Earlier this year, Harriet Rees, Starling’s group chief information officer, said it was time “to embrace a new era of banking, one that’s powered by agentic AI.”
The bank launched an agentic AI financial assistant in March, which it said was the U.K.’s first.
“At Starling, we want to encourage our customers to trust that AI can help them with money management and we’re excited to be pioneering the use of this cutting edge technology to help people be good with money,” Rees said in a prepared statement at the time.
