Regulatory changes, product launches, and industry developments across EU digital banking. Covering the past 12 months — updated as news breaks.
Danish neobank Lunar secured a €46 million capital increase from existing shareholders and new investors including London-based 100A. The funds are earmarked to scale its business banking proposition and support Nordic expansion with Norway and Finland as primary targets.
Monzo was granted a full banking licence by the Central Bank of Ireland and the ECB on 17 December 2025, its first regulatory authorisation to operate as a bank within the EU. Dublin was named Monzo's EU headquarters, with plans to offer Irish customers personal, joint, business, and savings accounts with Irish IBANs.
N26 announced that Mike Dargan, an executive board member at UBS Group AG, would become its new CEO in April 2026, subject to BaFin approval. Co-founder Maximilian Tayenthal stepped down as Co-CEO on 31 December 2025, ending N26's 12-year founder-led era. Dargan is tasked with leading a major compliance overhaul.
BaFin announced serious supervisory measures against N26 on 15 December 2025: a ban on new mortgage lending in the Netherlands, additional capital requirements, and the appointment of a special compliance monitor — the second imposed on N26 since 2021. The sanctions followed a 2024 special audit revealing serious deficiencies.
The EU Parliament and Council announced a provisional agreement on PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation on 27 November 2025. The package extends Verification of Payee checks to all credit transfers, requires PSPs to share fraud data, and updates open banking obligations for all neobanks and payment institutions.
Revolut finalised a secondary share sale at a $75 billion valuation — 67% above its August 2024 level — led by Coatue, Greenoaks, and Fidelity, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Franklin Templeton, and Nvidia's NVentures. Full year 2024 revenue grew 72% to $4 billion.
Danish neobank Lunar received authorisation as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider under MiCA in October 2025, becoming the first financial institution in Scandinavia to hold this licence. The authorisation replaced Lunar's prior Finanstilsynet registration and granted a passportable EU-wide crypto licence.
Trade Republic announced a strategic expansion from brokerage into wealth management, partnering with private equity giants Apollo and EQT to offer retail investors access to private market investments from €1. By November 2025 the platform had grown to 10 million users managing €150 billion in assets.
Paris-based B2B neobank Qonto submitted a banking licence application to France's ACPR in July 2025, coinciding with an announcement that it had surpassed 600,000 SME and freelance customers. A full banking licence would allow Qonto to offer credit products and savings — services its current payment institution licence prohibits.
Nordic neobank Lunar saw four senior executives depart simultaneously in July 2025, including co-founder Peter Andreasen, CTO Kåre Kjelstrøm, CEO of Lunar Bank Vibeke Bak Solok, and CCO Mats Persson Bergius. CEO Ken Villum Klausen framed it as a planned transition to operational maturity.
Revolut appointed Béatrice Cossa-Dumurgier as CEO of its new Western Europe HQ in Paris on 24 June 2025. She brings executive experience from BNP Paribas, BlaBlaCar, and Believe, and will lead Revolut's French banking licence application and six-market Western Europe strategy.
Europe leads global neobanking adoption with more than 80 million users in 2025, representing approximately 40% of the worldwide customer base. Business accounts accounted for nearly 65% of the market by value, with the UK and Germany leading by country share.
At the Choose France summit, Revolut announced Paris as its Western Europe headquarters and committed to investing more than €1 billion in France over three years, creating 200+ jobs. The company also confirmed it would apply for a French banking licence from ACPR and the ECB.
Vivid Money's Dutch entity received authorisation as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) under MiCAR from the Dutch AFM. The licence enables Vivid to offer regulated crypto trading and custody across all EU member states under a single passport, replacing its prior Italian VASP registration.
Dutch neobank bunq reported a net profit of €85.3 million for 2024, a 65% year-on-year increase, driven by net operating income growing 52% to €245.3 million. The company simultaneously announced it had filed the first phase of a US banking licence application with FINRA.
Germany's financial regulator BaFin issued a €15,000 fine to N26 after the neobank failed to properly notify BaFin that its supervisory board had approved a loan granted to one of the bank's own executives. The fine marked a continued pattern of regulatory friction between N26 and BaFin stretching back to 2021.
Vivid Money, the German fintech backed by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, announced it would discontinue developing its retail banking product and concentrate entirely on business banking for SMEs and freelancers. The pivot followed intense competition from Revolut and N26 in the consumer segment.
The European Central Bank cut its deposit facility rate to 2.50% on 6 March 2025, its sixth consecutive cut since June 2024. The rate cuts directly compressed savings rates offered by neobanks including Trade Republic, Revolut, and bunq, which had attracted millions of customers during the high-rate era of 2023–2024.
From 9 January 2025, all payment service providers in the eurozone became legally required to receive euro-denominated instant credit transfers within 10 seconds. The regulation also capped fees for instant payments at no higher than equivalent standard credit transfers.
Trade Republic doubled its customer base to 8 million users in one year, with assets under management surpassing €100 billion — making it Europe's largest retail broker. The company opened national branches in France, Spain, and Italy, enabling country-specific services including automated local tax reporting.