Starling has appointed the former top boss of HSBC Bank as its new chair as the digital challenger shakes up its boardroom on the road to its long-awaited IPO.

The UK fintech named Colin Bell – who has served as a non-executive director at Starling since November 2025 – as chairman of its board ahead of the departure of incumbent David Sproul.

The banking veteran’s nomination follows two departures from neobank’s board. Marcus Traill, who is connected to the bank’s biggest shareholder billionaire Harald McPike, departed earlier this month, as did Richard Watts, a fund manager at one of the firm’s investors Chrysalis.

As well as Sproul’s board departure as he exits the role of chair, Tracy Clarke – who led the hunt for a new chair – is set to follow, as per Starling’s annual report. 

City PM revealed earlier this year that McPike – who is understood to control a third of the company’s holdings – had previously been at odds with the board on a listing destination but had gone cold on ambitions for a London float.

McPike provided a crucial $70m investment to Starling in 2016 during its infancy and retains a stake of around a third according to Companies House filings in February 2025. Sources close to McPike had said the Bahamas-based billionaire was under the impression Starling was warming to a US listing, a move he had previously pushed back against.

It comes as more departures from the board are expected in the coming months, according to Bloomberg, with Starling not planning to replace those who have already exited.

Starling has said that changes to the board were “in ordinary course of business” and it had “already strengthened” the body with appointments of former Hargreaves Lansdown chief Dan Olley.

The bank has long been tipped for a public debut with its top team vocal on a desire to eventually list. 

In an interview with the Sunday Times in January, chief executive Raman Bhatia said he was “non-committal” over a listing venue with an IPO not expected in the short-term.

“Ultimately it’s a decision for shareholders, so we have not concluded on that,” he said.

But Starling has undergone a tonal shift in regards to when the eventual listing will take place.

Finance boss Declan Ferguson last summer said there was no “concrete view” to where the neobank would list and that any decision was still “in flux”.

This marked a major departure from the firm’s previous stance, where interim chief John Mountain said the fintech was “very committed” to a London listing, describing the City as a “natural home”.