As it reached 22 million users in 2025, Amsterdam-based neobank bunq gained the industry’s attention like never before. The bank has reaped the benefit of an early move to secure a banking license 10 years ago, together with a focus on subscription plans.
Above all, its growth is down to having adapted to target demographics such as people moving to new countries, often as freelancers – known as digital nomads – as well as segments such as couples, parents and students.
“We build specific tools for specific users,” says Joe Wilson, chief evangelist. “That focus is what drives our growth. It’s not about universal appeal or traditional banking metrics. It’s about deeply understanding our users and solving their problems better than anyone else. That clarity of purpose is what continues to motivate and create momentum for us.”
We built bunq around the idea that your bank should move with you, not hold you back
Joe Wilson
Rarely does a bank feel so much affinity with its customers and that approach helps it to shape its product closely according to what customers evidently want, including allowing users to submit ideas directly in the app. “That ongoing dialogue with users means we always know where we stand and what to prioritise,” says Wilson.
Among its audience-specific product developments is automatic VAT allocation, invoice processing and payment collection for freelancers. For students, it introduced shared expense tracking. For digital nomads, multiple local IBANs and real exchange rate transfers are key. In 2025, it expanded users’ ability to transact and save to more than 30 currencies. Average current account opening time stands at only one minute and 13 seconds.
Banking that moves with you
“The problem isn’t that people move around more,” Wilson says. “The problem is that banking still treats that as unusual. If someone can relocate in a weekend, they shouldn’t have to spend months setting up their financial life again. We built bunq around the idea that your bank should move with you, not hold you back.”
Savings and investments is one area of development that it has prioritised due to user feedback. In 2025, bunq launched crypto investing in partnership with Kraken and grew its stocks and ETFs range to more than 100 new companies and sectors, with investors able to start with as little as €1. It also launched term deposits with market-leading rates and introduced net wealth overview tool on its app, alongside new Pocket Money and Child Savings features.
Meanwhile, bunq’s AI assistant, Finn, celebrated its second year with high satisfaction scores and rapid times to resolution, drawing on context including transaction history and user behaviour to personalise responses. Heavy investment in anti-fraud tools led to the launch of an SOS hotline using AI-powered speech-to-speech translation, enabling support in 38 languages. It also integrated DuckDuckGoose’s DeepDetector into its KYC process, resulting in better than 90% accuracy in detecting deepfakes and a sharp reduction in manual reviews.
