Starling Bank has launched a new agentic AI-powered payment feature that enables retail customers to send money by speaking to the bank's mobile app.

The new talk to transact tool allows personal and joint account holders to make payments using natural language prompts such as "Pay the plumber £200" or "Send Mum £20 for lunch". The in-app Starling Assistant prepares the payment, which customers then approve with a single tap.

Starling said it will roll out the feature to all retail customers by the end of the year. It also plans to introduce a similar capability for small business customers, allowing them to upload an invoice and instruct the assistant to pay it.

The launch forms part of the bank's wider investment in agentic AI. Harriet Rees, group chief information officer at Starling Bank, said the technology marks the next stage in the evolution of digital payments.

"Agentic payments are following mobile wallets as the next evolution of payments here in the UK," said Rees. "Gone is the need for multiple payment screens and laboriously inputting payment details. Now, payments and transfers can happen with a simple natural language conversation."

Rees, who also serves as the UK government's AI champion for financial services, said continued collaboration between government, regulators and industry will play an important role in modernising the UK's payments infrastructure and enabling wider adoption of agentic commerce.

The new payments capability builds on Starling Assistant, the bank's AI-powered digital assistant, which already helps customers analyse direct debits and subscriptions, create personalised budgets and manage savings.

Starling has also expanded its portfolio of AI-powered Smart Tools since launching the programme in August. The bank has introduced 14 pre-configured tools, including a holiday spending analyser, an occasional cost calculator and a 50/30/20 budget planner.

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