Amsterdam’s challenger bank bunq has announced that they’ve reached €1 billion in user deposits. This milestone outlines a steep hockey stick curve, with the amount of money deposited by users more than doubling for the second year in a row. 2019 with €433.4 million, 2020 with €837 million deposited.
With the rapid growth, bunq is looking beyond the King’s Day party and making headway into Germany. The bank has opened an office in Cologne and now offers German patrons German IBANs.
“We’re so happy that our users trust us with their daily lives and keep on using the features that make their lives easy,” says CEO and founder Ali Niknam. “With a local account number, our German members can get the full bunq experience!”
Founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Ali Nikam, bunq was granted the first European banking permit in over 35 years and is currently available in 30 European markets. To date, Nikam is the sole investor having invested €73.8 million.
Not a bad benchmark for what is essentially a bootstrapped company. When asked about the lack of venture capital involvement in 2019, Nikam told Altfi,
“There might come a time we think it is in the benefit of our users and the benefit of the company. Frankly, I just need to pick up the phone because we get calls every day. We have chosen not to do so right from the start because to us it’s more important to have the space to create a product that people really love to use rather than rushing into the market.”
Mind you, this statement was made in a pre-pandemic world, and prior to €1 billion in user deposits.
Ali Nikam is also the founder and sole owner of Benelux region domain name, hosting and VPS provider TransIP. TransIP was backed by Stockholm’s EQT, however In 2017, EQT sold its stake in TransIP to Cherenkov B.V., a company controlled and fully owned by Niknam.
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