Starling Bank is partnering with the Post Office to provide digital banking services to its customers across the UK, including rural communities which have been left with no access to a local bank branch.

The mobile-only challenger bank will provide everyday banking services to its personal and business customers at 11,500 branches across the Post Office’s network.

It will also ensure that Starling customers living in more than 1,500 so-called ‘banking deserts’ will be able to withdraw and deposit cash.

Starling’s business account customers will also be able to see near ‘real time’ credit into their account from their cash deposits into Post Offices.

A swathe of branch closures in recent years has left many communities without access to traditional retail banking services, but 99.7 per cent of the UK population lives within three miles of a Post Office.

The deal is the first time a mobile-only bank has struck a partnership with the Post Office.

The move adds physical infrastructure to the FinTech’s app-based banking offering.

It also brings the total number of banks now part of the Post Office’s Banking Framework to 28.

The Post Office handled around 125 million banking transactions last year, a figure that has risen significantly since 2014, partly due to bank branch closures.

Anne Boden, chief executive at Starling Bank, said: “There are now over 1,500 communities in the UK with no bank branch, so by combining Starling’s cutting-edge digital banking technology with the unique reach of Post Office branches, we can bring simple and affordable banking back to these bank branch deserts."

Martin Kearsley, banking services director at the Post Office, said: “It’s a responsibility that we take very seriously, and it's why we have secured continued access to almost every UK bank account through all of our branches, in partnership with the banking industry.”

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