Amsterdam-based bunq, an independent neobank that helps users save time, money, and the environment, announced on Tuesday that it has applied for a US banking licence after serving European users for almost a decade.
bunq was founded in 2012 by Ali Niknam after he secured the first European banking permit in over 35 years. Up until 2021, he served as the company’s only backer, contributing €98.7M of his own cash to the venture.
Launching in the US
Founder Ali Niknam says, “Ten years ago we set out to build something many considered impossible: a bank its users love to use, designed to make life easy.”
“When we first entered the scene, we were greeted with scepticism and even some ridicule. Founding a brand new, fully mobile bank in a sector saturated with legacy institutions was quite literally like David walking into a cage full of Goliaths.”
Niknam says bunq was the first company in 35 years to acquire a European banking licence.
It was also the first bank to implement a sustainable development strategy based on a service-oriented business model, and as such, pioneered numerous industry-first inventions that altered how millions of people spend, save, and invest their money.
“Having expanded to over 30 markets within Europe, taking the bank of The Free to the Land of the Free is a logical next step. We’ll once again be the underdog that supports its users in their pursuit for individual freedom,” adds Niknam.
According to the bunq founder, nearly 5 million digital nomads live in the US, including immigrants, foreign businesspeople, and workers with deep connections to both sides of the Atlantic.
“We will introduce this large group of location-independent people to our proven, transparent and value-based banking model, one that gives them the freedom to live life on their own terms,” says Niknam.
bunq is entering the US market with a straightforward proposition – a banking service that allows US citizens and companies to avoid banking bureaucracy by opening a fully functional foreign bank account in just five minutes.
Customers can easily handle their money using bunq from any location, mentions Niknam.
Recent developments
In February, the Amsterdam-based challenger bank announced that it reached a pre-tax profit of €2.3M in the last quarter of 2022. In Q4 2022, its net fee income grew by 37 per cent compared to Q4 2021, and user deposits grew by 64 per cent compared to €1.8B at the end of 2022.
In October 2022, bunq announced the rollout of a new update, Update 21, the fourth large-scale update to the bunq app that comes with features like Easy Budgeting, Group Expenses, Widgets, and more.
In the same year, the challenger bank also launched bunq Easy Savings to enable people to get returns on their savings. The company wanted to bridge the gap between low-interest rates and stock/crypto market volatility.
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