Bunq

Bunq B.V.

Company type	Besloten vennootschap B.V.
Industry	Financial technology
Founded	2012 (2012)
Founder	Ali Niknam
Headquarters	Amsterdam , Netherlands
Products	Current accounts, Savings accounts, Debit cards, Mortgages
Number of employees	201–500 (2024)
Website	www.bunq.com

Bunq B.V. (English: /bʌŋk/, Dutch: [bʏŋk]; stylized in all lowercase), is a Dutch fintech and neobank licensed in the Netherlands within the European Union and operating in 30 European countries. It was founded in and is headquartered in Amsterdam.

The company was founded in 2012 by Dutch-Canadian entrepreneur Ali Niknam, who previously founded web hosting provider TransIP and Team.Blue. Bunq's subscription services offer multiple currencies, allows multiple International Bank Account Numbers, provides both personal and business bank accounts and has a public API. In 2021, the company secured the largest Series A round for a European fintech company to date, giving it unicorn status. In 2022, it purchased Belgium-based fintech organisation Tricount, making it the second largest neobank in the European Union, and in 2024, Bunq entered partnerships with Mastercard and Nvidia.

Bunq has been subject to controversy, reportedly being used extensively by criminals due to its lax security procedures, as well as the company's reported failure to offer timely support to customers who are affected by fraud. Former employees have addressed the latter, criticising its prioritisation of ease of access over safety. The bank has also faced concern over lacking privacy measures; namely, Bunq has allegedly failed to address the unrestricted access by employees to the personal information of the bank's customers.

History

Early history (2012–2015)

Bunq was founded by Ali Niknam in Amsterdam in 2012 as a fintech company. Niknam previously founded web hosting provider TransIP and Team.Blue. Much of Bunq's early efforts went toward obtaining a European banking license from De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the central bank of the Netherlands, which it received n 2014. The company then launched its app, becoming the first fully mobile Dutch bank.

Niknam has stated in interviews that "Bunq is the only bank built by coders". This seems to have resonated in Bunq's early public perception, as the bank was frequently labeled "an IT company with a banking license". At its launch in 2015, Bunq was coined "WhatsApp for Banking" by Dutch newspaper NRC, further underscoring its product and technology-focused model as opposed to traditional banks.

International expansion (2015–present)

As of 2019, Bunq had been offering mobile financial services in 30 European countries. In the early 2020s, Bunq began offering multiple currencies and International Bank Account Numbers (IBAN) on a single subscription, regardless of the account holder’s location or residency. According to Bunq, in 2021, user deposits surpassed €1.2 billion, increasing to €4.5 billion by early 2024.

Bunq offers personal and business bank accounts and a public API that allows software developers to access their bank accounts programmatically and build their apps. By 2021, Bunq became the first digital bank in Europe to offer mortgages. As a licensed bank, Bunq account holders fall under the Deposit Guarantee Scheme of the European Central Bank.

Niknam was Bunq's sole benefactor until 2021, having invested over €120 million into the company. In 2021, Bunq secured the largest Series A round for a European fintech company to date, bringing its valuation to €1.6 billion and granting it unicorn status. Later that year, it was valued at $2 billion in an investment deal.

Bunq's CEO announced the creation of a special fund in March 2022, aiming to help refugees from Ukraine displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine to come to the Netherlands. Bunq also stated that it would provide Ukrainian refugees with free Bunq bank accounts. In May 2022, Bunq announced that they had acquired the Belgium-based fintech organisation Tricount. This acquisition saw Bunq become the second largest neobank in the European Union. In October 2022, Bunq won a court case against the DNB. Bunq had taken the DNB to court over the central bank’s anti-money laundering (AML) policies after the DNB alleged bunq's transaction monitoring process did not comply with anti-money laundering laws. The court ruled in favor of Bunq using a learning system based on artificial intelligence as opposed to the rule-based system imposed by DNB.

Bunq's European user base reached 11 million at the end of 2023.

Bunq entered partnerships with Mastercard and Nvidia in June 2024. By that month, it had reached 464 employees and 12.5 million customers.

Controversies

Usage of Bunq by criminals

In April 2021, Dutch consumer platform Kassa reported that Bunq has seen extensive use by criminals, due to Bunq not requiring a social security number to register a bank account and the ease of creating an API key.

Helpdesk fraud

In April 2024, Dutch consumer platform Kassa reported that customers who were scammed due to spoofing, phishing or bank helpdesk fraud could not get in touch with Bunq quickly. Kassa also reported that, due to Bunq's broader options for transferring money, it was far easier to lose large sums of money to fraud; a savings account with Bunq can be converted to bank account with a single tap, making it easier to transfer money away from a savings account. The Dutch Consumers' Association placed a safety warning on its savings account comparator website.

In May 2024, Dutch broadcasting company NOS and NRC, a Dutch newspaper, revealed that scammers had targeted Bunq customers more often when compared to other banks due to the fact that security measures used by other banks were not present at Bunq. Also in May, the Dutch consumer platform Radar  reported a case where someone had lost €58,000 after falling victim to helpdesk fraud. The scammers requested over 80 debit cards without triggering any alarms within Bunq's system, resulting in the victim losing access to their Bunq account and their money. Bunq responded by saying that they would reimburse a large part of the damages out of goodwill, however they also mentioned that they were not directly responsible for the damages.

Following these reports, Bunq said that it would be introducing a 24 hour wait period for transactions deemed to be suspicious, including "changes to your daily limit, logging in on a new device, accepting an invite to a joint or shared account, making a payment to a new counterparty for the first time, or if the payment otherwise raised our suspicion and we’re taking the necessary steps to verify its legitimacy".

Initially, Bunq refused to compensate victims of the scams revealed by NOS and NRC, with Niknam stating that those who provided scammers with their login details had "giv[en] away their car keys," and that nothing could be done about it. Following talks with the Dutch Ministry of Finance, Bunq agreed to provide an average of 85% compensation to those affected, however this was also called into question when it was revealed that those with small claims had been offered 100% compensation, while those with large claims had not received an offer higher than 25%; the amount of lost funds suffered by individual customers ranged from €5,000 to €200,000.

Former employees of Bunq have criticized the company for prioritizing ease of access over safety features, as security features may annoy customers with delays in accessing accounts.

Privacy concerns

NRC reported that Bunq employees have easy access to customer data, which has been abused by some Bunq employees to view information related to their friends, acquaintances and colleagues. The newspaper spoke to five former employees that had wrongly accessed customer details for personal, rather than professional, reasons; one had done so to help their friends who had had troubles with customer service, another had done so to see how much her colleagues earned and three others had done so to "spy" on their lovers.

The newspaper writes that when these issues were brought to the CEO, Ali Niknam, they were either dismissed or ignored. One of these internal documents was a risk assessment performed by the security department, which outlined three possible methods of privacy being breached, one of which was employees accessing customer data and the potential consequences, including fines and possible legal action against the company. Despite this risk assessment being dated in 2022, no internal monitoring of employee access to private information was implemented.

Managers attempted in 2021 to give certain departments greater access rights, while lessening the access rights of other departments due to security concerns. Although Niknam initially approved this measure, later that year it was reverted when employees complained that they couldn't view certain accounts. Bunq claimed that providing employees with broad access to customer data was justified because in addition to their normal roles, they require most employees to handle customer service inquiries which requires access to user data.