neon launches digital bank

Zurich - The FinTech company based in the Greater Zurich Area, neon, is now offering a free bank account together with a Mastercard, allowing banking transactions to be processed via an app. This offering will see the start-up go head to head with major banks.

neon has been testing its bank account app for six months. Since Tuesday, everybody has the opportunity to open a digital bank account. The neon app handles everything digitally, from account opening to processing banking transactions. According to information provided by neon, customers can withdraw cash around the world and pay for services and products anywhere, including online, with the Mastercard debit card provided with the account.

The free digital account service will see neon compete with major banks, who “charge way over 100 Swiss francs per year for the most basic account and card packages”, according to the start-up. Moreover, neon states that banks are lagging behind in terms of digital standard processes such as account opening and card blocking.

Jörg Sandrock, one of the start-up’s four co-founders, commented: “No branches, optimized processes, cooperating with specialist partners and an app for everything – all this ensures that our operations are faster, more streamlined and closer to our customers than the competition in Switzerland”.

In Europe, successful online banks such as N26 in Germany and Revolut in the UK are already disrupting the traditional banking market.

Date: 28.03.2019