bunq , an online banking startup, has filed an application for a US banking licence with the FDIC in the state of New York. An expansion to the US would help bunq, which turned a EUR 2.

3 million profit for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2022, grow more quickly after years of investing in its software and operations. The bank’s US target group will be the five million European expatriates and European businesses operating in the US. Dedicated to making life easy for its users, the challenger bank will enable them to bypass banking bureaucracy by opening a fully-fledged international bank account in just five minutes.

As more and more Europeans are met with complexity and lack of transparency when it comes to access to financial services in the US, bunq is poised to give its users in the US a product tailored to their wants and needs. The bunq app, tailored to those who live an international lifestyle, enables its users to manage their finances from anywhere in the world. Through saving on foreign exchange fees, using multiple currencies, and automated budgeting, digital nomads will get full control over their finances.

bunq’s offering bunq offers savers in its native Netherlands 1. 56% interest on deposits, a percentage point above rates offered by the three big banks that dominate Dutch banking, ING, ABN Amro, and Rabobank. bunq makes some mortgage loans but keeps more than half of its reserves at the European Central Bank's deposit facility.

The company's business model resembles that of ‘freemium’ software, offering users a free savings account with limited features and more advanced features with a monthly subscription costing from 3 to 18 EUR per month. The neobank offers users the option to get up to two free Mastercards and 25 virtual Mastercards for safe online payments. Customers can spend overseas with no added fees, and enjoy all the perks of a credit card, including booking hotels and renting cars, without the risk of debt.

Active AutoVAT, and the bunq app, will calculate the VAT on users’ incoming and outgoing payments and save it in a dedicated sub-account automatically. Expanding to US bunq, which competes with Britain's Revolut and Germany's N26, said that as of March 14, it had deposits of around 2. 3 billion EUR, up 27% from 1.

8 billion euros at the end of 2023. Revolut is also seeking a US licence, while N26 of Germany gave up trying to get into the US market in 2021. N26 launched in the US in 2019, as it marked its first market outside of Europe.

With the pandemic accelerating the adoption of digital banking globally, but in particular in Europe, at unprecedented rates, N26 chose to deprioritise the US in order to focus on digital banking in Europe. N26 will reportedly prioritise the expansion of its product into new verticals in response to strong customer demand. .