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Image Credit: Ali Niknam

Amsterdam-based challenger bank bunq has made its entry into Spain with Spanish IBANs just after receiving  €193M in a round of Series A funding in July – the largest ever by a European fintech. 

The company raised the funds in a deal with British private equity firm Pollen Street Capital, valuing bunq at approximately €1.6B.

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bunq’s Entry In Spain

With this, bunq users in Spain will receive a Spanish IBAN that will allow them to use their bunq accounts throughout the country., The company had already introduced  German and French IBANs in April and June respectively. 

This will also allow bunq users with a bank account to add IBANs from multiple European countries to their bunq app.

The company also announced that it will soon unveil a new feature – ‘Local Currencies’ –  that will let users receive, convert, hold and spend non-euro currencies from the comfort of their homes using the bunq app. 

The developments come after almost 70 percent of bunq users said that multi-IBAN and multi-currency features were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important to them when deciding where to bank. 

Speaking on the development, Ali Niknam, CEO and founder of bunq, says, “At bunq we’re constantly thinking about new ways to make life easier for people. When potential users tell us something that’s important to them, we build it! More IBANs and more currencies mean more opportunity for our users to bank like a local.”

New Features:

Here’s a quick guide to new features:

– Auto accept payment requests and direct debits from trusted contacts.

– Debit reminders for any direct debit a day before it’s due to expire.

– All subscriptions will come with reminders for when a subscription is about to expire.

– Top up notifications that can help users in getting the money.

– Tailored support from the team will better the user’s in-app experience.

– A new search function allows users to get to any feature, setting or payment.. 

bunq Update 18 is available to download on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

European challenger bank bunq

European challenger bank bunq was founded in 2012 by Ali Niknam. The entrepreneur invested €98.7M of his own money initially into developing bunq. And now with availability in 29 European countries, there has been no looking back.

In April 2021, the company claimed that their deposits surpassed €1B for the first time, having doubled in 2019 and then again in 2020. 

bunq became profitable in July 2021, just after securing the Series A funds. 

With the proceeds, the company decided to further expand across Europe and to continue incorporating M&A as part of its business growth strategy. The company also acquired Capitalflow, a Dublin-based company that lends to SMEs across a broad range of sectors in the Irish economy.

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