Starling Bank has said it expects to more than quadruple pre-tax profits in its latest financial year, which runs until the end of March.

Starling chief executive and founder Anne Boden said that the bank generated pre-tax profits of over £250 million in December and recorded £600 million annualised revenue.

The results come after the challenger swung to profit in 2021 following a loss of £30 million in the previous year.

The bank's growth was marked further by an announcement in December that it plans to hire up to 1,000 people as it opens its fourth UK office in Manchester.

The bank said that it is recruiting across a number of roles, including operations; software engineering; data science; cyber security; and customer service.

“One thing that Starling will not change in 2023 is our commitment to innovation,” said Boden in her annual New Year blog. “While we have lofty ideas about our part in the evolution of financial services, we built Starling to deliver banking services and products that are really useful."

The chief exec referred to the bank's most recent launch of free virtual cards, describing them as like smartphones in that they are an innovation that "people didn't know they needed until it was invented".

At the end of last year Starling announced the launch of a new virtual card for its personal current account customers.

The virtual card works like a standard debit card for payments but is linked to a ‘saving space’ in the bank’s app, instead of the main account balance.

The saving space can be personalised, which the bank says gives customers more control over their budget.

Anne Boden also doubled down on previous comments about Starling's stance on cryptocurrencies, saying that while she sees the potential of digital assets they need to be "highly regulated".

"Right now, crypto is lacking sufficient practical and moral purpose," wrote the Starling founder. "I call for regulators to ensure that crypto exchanges are regulated to the same standards as other financial institutions: if they are not regulated, then they cannot continue to trade."

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