I’m very excited to announce that, after successfully serving our European users for almost a decade, bunq has applied for a US banking license!

Going stateside undeniably marks a huge milestone for us and I’d love to share how we reached this milestone together, why we decided to bring bunq to the United States, and what the future might hold.

How we got here

Ten years ago we set out to build something many considered impossible: a bank its users love to use, designed to make life easy. When we first entered the scene, we were greeted with skepticism and even some ridicule. Founding a brand new, fully mobile bank in a sector saturated with legacy institutions was quite literally like David walking into a cage full of Goliaths.

As we’ve decisively shown ever since, impossible is just a word for things that haven’t been done yet.

We were the first in 35 years to obtain a European banking license and would quickly turn doing the impossible into a veritable habit. As the first bank to maintain a sustainable growth strategy based on a service-oriented business model, we pioneered many industry-first innovations, fundamentally changing how millions of people spend, save and invest their money.

Having expanded to over 30 markets within Europe, taking the bank of The Free to the Land of the Free is a logical next step. We’ll once again be the underdog that supports its users in their pursuit of individual freedom.

Launching in the US

Whenever we enter a new market, we take a lot of time listening to users and figuring out what we can do to make their lives easy. The US is home to a community of nearly 5 million digital nomads: expats, international entrepreneurs and professionals with strong ties to both sides of the Atlantic. We will introduce this large group of location-independent people to our proven, transparent and value-based banking model, one that gives them the freedom to live life on their own terms.

We’re going stateside with a simple proposition, offering a banking product that enables US consumers and businesses to bypass banking bureaucracy by opening a fully fledged international Bank Account in just 5 minutes. Using bunq, they can effortlessly manage their finances from anywhere in the world.

There are always a lot of unknowns when you enter a market. It takes time, effort and the best people to make a real difference. We can’t wait to start making life easy for our US users and to make our mark on the US banking landscape. In our opinion, applying for a US license is the only way we can maintain independence and provide The Free with the easy and safe banking experience they deserve.

Today, driven by our user-centric philosophy to always keep their best interests at heart, we are taking another historic step in support of The Free. The rest will be history.

Stay tuned.

Ali Niknam, founder and CEO of bunq