The world is increasingly becoming digital, and the banking sector is no exception. A growing number of banks are choosing to go digital, and this list showcases some of the biggest names in the business. More and more people are choosing to do their transactions and check their account balances online.
Banks are offering more and more services online, and it’s becoming the norm to see people using their laptops, smartphones, or tablets to conduct financial transactions. These banks have made a name for themselves by providing innovative online banking services that make it easy for customers to manage their finances from anywhere in the world.
Top 10 Digital Banks in the World
As people are becoming more progressive and advanced compared to the past, they have no time to travel from one city to another to make transitions. Numerous famous digital banks are being established to help people develop emerging technologies. Here is a list of the world’s biggest Digital Banks.
1. Nubank
- CEO: David Velez
- Founding Year: 2013
- Headquarters: Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Valuation: $69.92 billion
Dubbed as the biggest fintech in Latin America. Nubank is a Brazil-based bank founded in 2013 by Brazilian Cristina Junqueira, Colombian David Velez, and American Edward Wible. The world-famous Nubank introduced its first impressive product in 2014 which was a credit card. This was the first outstanding financial product that was launched in the world at that time.
Nubank has also implemented security measures such as “Modo Rua” (Street Mode), which protects users from mobile theft, and temporary virtual credit cards for further security. They have had fast development and market penetration as a result of their strategy of catering to the requirements of underbanked communities in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.
2. Chime Bank
- CEO: Chris Britt
- Founding Year: 2013
- Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA
- Valuation: USD $25 billion
Chime is the most useful American fintech start-up for helping retail consumers. It is situated in San Francisco and was founded in 2013 by a renowned person named Chris Britt. Chris is still performing duties to work as the CEO of the company. in 2014, the company was publicly launched, and Dr. Phil surprised his guests with a $5,0000 Chime card.
Checking and savings accounts are just two of the many banking options offered by Chime’s partners, Bancorp Bank and Stride Bank. A key component of their AI strategy is predictive personalization, that lets them to customize the user experience according to individual behavior. This makes it possible for them to accelerate growth and open new accounts.
3- Judo Bank
- CEO: Chris Bayliss
- Founding Year: 2018
- Headquarters: Melbourne, Australia
- Valuation: USD $2.106 billion
Judo bank was introduced by David Hornery and Joseph Healey in the year of 2016; it is a digital bank based in Australia. This bank is specially designed for small business owners; it offers them different kinds of products like transaction accounts, savings accounts, and term deposits. The company started its journey by providing services to the small business sector only.
Sustaining growth, improving operations, and delighting customers are the three pillars around which Judo Bank’s technological strategy rests. To get the most out of their technological expenditures, they use a cloud computing tech stack that gives them flexibility and cost advantages. Judo Bank’s bankers are able to provide excellent client service and make educated lending decisions due to data insights and sophisticated analytics.
4. Tinkoff
- CEO: Oliver Hughes
- Founding Year: 2006
- Headquarters: Moscow, Russia
- Valuation: USD $6.3 billion
Tinkoff was founded by Moscow-based entrepreneur Oleg in 2006. He invested almost $70m in his project. Tinkoff rolled out its first business credit card in 2007 and attracted a huge group especially, a big investment company such as Goldman Sachs.
Russian financial services giant Tinkoff Bank is using digital technologies to transform its business. Their branchless, internet-only business style has made them one of Russia’s leading credit card issuers.
Big data and advanced analytics improve customer retention, acquisition, and targeting. Tinkoff can make smart judgments and keep good customers by integrating and analyzing massive volumes of organized and unstructured data.
5. N26 Bank
- CEO: Valentin Staff
- Founding Year: Valentin Stalf
- Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
- Valuation: USD $9+ billion
N26, created in 2013 by Maximilian Tayenthal as 26, is another top digital bank. In 2016, it changed its name from 26 to N26 after receiving the license. While competitors introduced debit cards and apps. N26 continued its traditions and gained 7 million customers in 25 US and European markets.
N26 is the first bank in Germany to have a Ba-Fin German License with 100% mobile banking. The bank runs on microservices in the cloud for scalability and flexibility. This lets N26 release over 100 live updates weekly to keep their services secure and up-to-date. Automating testing and deployment with a CI/CD pipeline improves efficiency and dependability.
6. Sofi
- CEO: 2011
- Founding Year: Anthony Noto
- Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA
- Valuation: USD $12.38 billion
Sofi (Social Finance) was formed in 2016 by four Standford students: Dan Macklin, Mike Cagney, and Ian Brady. The Sofi digital bank’s loan program was a great first step. It offers mortgages and credit cards and is popular. Users can also trade cryptocurrencies and fractional shares on the site. More intriguingly, Sofi became a full-service national bank in October 2020.
SoFi’s technology stack enables loan, investment, and personal finance management. It gives individuals individualized financial advice and insights using data analytics and machine learning. SoFi’s platform combines with other financial services for a complete, user-friendly experience.
7. Revolut
- CEO: Nikolay Storonsky
- Founding Year: 2015
- Headquarters: London, England, UK
- Valuation: USD $45 billion
In 2015, Vlad Yatsenko and Nikolay Storonsky founded Revolut. The headquarters are in London, although it started in Canary Wharf’s world-renowned level39 incubator. The bank started with a prepaid card and app that allowed foreign spending without currency fees. Revolut became the first UK digital bank. It quickly expanded to Australia, Singapore, and Australia. Its recent touchdown also affected the US.
Revolut offers currency exchange, cryptocurrency trading, and budgeting features on its mobile app. The company uses a cloud-native core banking technology for rapid scaling and flexibility. Multi-currency accounts and business finance solutions are supported by this platform.
8. MoneyLion
- CEO: Dee Choubey
- Founding Year: 2013
- Headquarters: New York City, New York, USA
- Valuation: USD $1 billion
MoneyLion was introduced by Wall Street teach specialists and investment bankers in 2013, and its headquarters is in New York City. Chee Mung, Dee Choubey, and Pratyush Tiwari founded this digital bank and made great efforts to provide investment and lending services to users. They also offered financial advisories to customers. After all this, it started digital banking support as well.
MoneyLion aims to help consumers with credit building and financial management, for those who often live paycheck to paycheck. The company uses analytics and machine learning technology to offer customized advice based on users’ spending patterns, and it also provides small loans to help manage fluctuating monthly income and expenses.
9. Monzo
- CEO: TS Anil
- Founding Year: 2015
- Headquarters: London, England
- Valuation: $5.9 billion
This is the earliest digital bank founded in the UK. It was introduced by Jonas Huckestein, Tom Blomfield, Paul Rippon, Gary Doman, and Jonas Huckestein in 2015. They loved to introduce it by the name Monzo.
In 2016, a digital banking app set a record by collecting almost one million pounds on an equivalency crowd-funding forum. One interesting thing is that the bank, with its AI technology, has reduced the sign-up times from 17 minutes to 4 minutes.
The bank operates through trained machine learning algorithms in compliance with Google Cloud Vertex AI. This setup manages customer activities in multiple ways and helps them protect themselves from spammers.
10. C6 Bank
- CEO: Marcelo Kalim
- Founding Year: 2018
- Headquarters: Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Valuation: USD $11.3 billion
This unicorn comes from Brazil, introduced by Carlos Fonseca, Marcelo Kalim, and Leandro Torres in 2018. The objective was to gain as much fame in Brazil as Nubank gained. C6 had already divided its investment into two rounds. They raised 269 million dollars and left a good impact on users not only in Brazil but also in the world.
C6 Bank uses Thought Machine’s cloud-native core banking technology, Vault Core, to create and deliver novel financial products. This relationship shows Vault Core’s versatility in financial solutions for customers in terms of customization. C6 Bank also integrates cybersecurity values into its culture for operational safety and security.
