Bridging
Starling Bank to buy £500m mortgage book from Masthaven – reports

Starling Bank is planning to buy a mortgage book worth £500m from Masthaven, following the bank’s withdrawal from the UK banking market earlier this year.
According to a report in the Financial Times, the acquisition will help the business diversify its lending.
In its latest annual results to June 2021, Starling Bank has 2.3 million accounts with over £6.7bn in deposits and more than £2.3bn in total gross lending.
This compares to around £2.8bn in total customer deposits and £836m in total gross lending in the same period last year. Within its lending, £104m was from retail lending and £2.2bn was SME lending.
Earlier this year Starling Bank was believed to have put together funds worth £130m from existing investors for an acquisition war chest.
Existing investors who participated in the funding round included Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, Harold McPike and RPMI Railpen.

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It was also reported earlier this year that Starling was interested in buying Kensington Mortgages’ platform.
Last year, the bank acquired Fleet Mortgages in a £50m transaction, which made Starling the sole funder of Fleet’s future originations.
Earlier this year, Masthaven Bank said that it would withdraw from the UK banking market over the next two years after a strategic review of the business.
At the time, it said that its withdrawal plans were to cut and ultimately sell its long-term and short-term loan books and return its savings deposits to customers.
Masthaven was launched in 2004 as a non-bank lender and mainly focused on bridging loans and secured lending.
It got its banking licence in 2016, launched a first mortgage in 2017 and then business savings and buy-to-let products in 2018.
Starling Bank and Masthaven declined to comment.