bunq
Dutch mobile bank focused on sustainability. Plant trees with every payment. Full EU banking licence, no hidden fees.
Quick facts
A full EU banking licence with no hidden fees, and every card payment plants a tree – a genuinely different pitch from the usual neobank feature checklist. The app itself is fast and clean to use day to day.
Some account tiers carry a monthly fee where traditional banks would charge nothing, and physical branches don't exist – everything runs through the app.
Why does it score 83?
Incorporated in Amsterdam, Netherlands – a full EU member state.
Backed by venture investors including Pollen Street Capital, but no single non-EU company holds a controlling stake.
bunq runs its own banking infrastructure in the Netherlands rather than relying on a third-party processor.
GDPR-compliant, but the app isn't open source, which keeps accountability lower than fully open alternatives.
See how they compare
bunqWhat does it replace?
Paypal 
Visa 
Mastercard 
American Express More European Payments & banking alternatives
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UK digital bank, cloud-native on AWS since day one and regulated by the FCA/PRA. Caveat: it is UK-only, with no EU entity or EU banking licence, and post-Brexit both the bank and its AWS hosting sit under UK jurisdiction rather than the EU.