Starling Bank has launched a new digital banking toolkit and a US dollar account to allow business banking customers to spend directly in pounds and dollars with a single debit card.

The Business Toolkit can be added to Starling’s free business account for limited companies and sole traders for £7 a month. It includes new tools that will help small and medium-sized enterprises get back on track as the nation begins to emerge from the Coronavirus lockdown.

It allows them to do bookkeeping and accounting direct from their Starling account, including: creating, sending and tracking invoices, automating expenses, recording VAT and connecting to HMRC to submit VAT returns, uploading bills and scheduling payments to manage cash flow.

The toolkit, which has been in beta testing since January, will be free for the first three months for those who sign up before 31 July.

The US dollar business account follows the launch of the euro business account in October 2019. Customers will have a full US bank account, with a US account number and sort code equivalent, known as an ACH routing number.

The account will be available to Starling’s business customers for a £5 flat monthly fee and they will be able to transfer money from their GBP account to their USD account - transfers in will be made at the prevailing exchange rate, plus a 0.4 per cent fee of the transaction value.

Starling chief executive Anne Boden said: “Small business owners are under a huge amount of strain at the moment and at Starling we’re continually looking for ways to help them get back on their feet and remain open for business.

"The new features that we’ve built for the Business Toolkit will help entrepreneurs save time and money, while at the same time allowing them to cut down on paperwork and spend more time serving their customers.”

The launches come as Starling is applying for another £35 million from the Banking Competition Remedies fund set up to promote competition in the business banking market.

Starling already got £100 million last February from the Capability and Innovation Fund Pool A grant process.

In August, the challenger bank explained that by investing in proprietary, cloud-based technology and extending its engineering capabilities, it was rolling out things like flexible deposit accounts, multi-user card functionality, instant invoicing, VAT management, advanced invoice financing, smart FX, supply chain finance using blockchain-based technology and secured business lending.

“Starling is building a full suite of 52 digital banking products over four years to meet the needs of its SME customers,” it stated.

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