LTW 2025: Interview with Starling Bank’s CIO Harriet Rees

Drawing more than 45,000 participants across three action-packed days, London Tech Week was abuzz with fresh government commitments, groundbreaking innovations and a flurry of announcements.

Billed as the country’s biggest tech event, London Tech Week took place from 9 to 11 June 2025 at London Olympia.

The event launched with a keynote speech by Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who was soon joined on stage by Nvidia Co-Founder and CEO Jensen Huang.

Harriet Rees is CIO of Starling Bank.

Established as a challenger brand in the UK, Starling Bank now has more than four million retail customers and 500,000 SME customers in the UK. 

It also has a Software as a Service (SaaS) brand called Engine which takes the technology that powers the bank in the UK and propels it to a global level.

At London Tech Week, Harriet took to the stage with Technology Magazine Editor Maya Derrick for a fireside called Turning Bold Ideas Into Real-World Impact, where Harriet talked attendees through Starling’s newly-launched industry-first AI banking tool called Spending Intelligence.

With Spending Intelligence, customers can type or use their voice, and ask questions such as 'how much did I spend on bills last year?', 'how much did I spend on coffee last month' or 'how much did I spend on groceries yesterday' before receiving a series of graphs and analytics. 

The bank's ambition is to give customers better understanding of where their money is going so they can make more informed decisions on how to budget, spend and save. 

Here, she speaks to Technology Magazine at London Tech Week.

Starling Bank has always been a bit of an innovator in this space. How does it feel to be in a room full of innovators?

It’s absolutely incredible. 

The energy in this room is palpable and to feel the energy that’s coming from the creativity and technological innovation that we have today is absolutely incredible. 

What makes London Tech Week so special for Starling Bank?

With Spending Intelligence, customers will be able to use Gen AI that’s powered by Gemini to query their spending using natural language and voice. 

This is groundbreaking because it breaks down any of the barriers that might stop you from confronting and getting to know your spending and financial habits. 

We’re really excited to launch this to customers here in the UK.

How important is it for you to put AI in customers’ hands?

It’s so important to us. 

We live in a world where AI is already everywhere. Our customers are used to using AI in all aspects of their life.

It’s really important that financial services and people’s relationship with their banking isn’t excluded from that. 

Starling is really excited to be the first UK bank taking this important and pivotal step to bring AI into the hands of customers, to help them manage their money and help them to be good with money. 

What else are you excited about here at London Tech Week? Especially where innovation is in abundance?

We hope that with the launch of features like Spending Intelligence that this can really be a pivotal moment.

AI is no longer happening behind the scenes, focusing on pure efficiency and productivity. Rather, it’s in the hands of customers so that they can see and feel the impact for themselves. 

Explore the latest edition of Technology Magazine and be part of the conversation at our global conference series, Tech & AI LIVE.

Discover all our upcoming events and secure your tickets today.

Technology Magazine is a BizClik brand