bunq: Mastercard Partnership to Power AI-led Open Banking

bunq’s collaboration with Mastercard is set to give users spending insights across all their bank accounts.

The neobank is joining forces with the leading payment services company to power its personal financial management features, in addition to advancing open banking in Europe. Likewise, bunq will be leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in open banking with Mastercard. 

With this integration, bunq users will be able to use the bunq app to budget more effectively and plan ahead with their spending. 

This comes during a time where interest in open banking continues to boom, with reports suggesting the number of open banking users in Europe will double by 2027.

Advancing open banking across Europe

bunq’s announcement is very timely, given that increasing numbers of people in Europe now prefer to have more than one bank account. Improved digital features for online banking can therefore offer greater opportunities for users, including reducing the complexity of managing multiple bank accounts, in addition to helping to improve open banking across Europe.

Open banking refers to financial data being shared between banks and third-party service providers through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).

Seeking to enhance the user experience, bunq’s AI money assistant, Finn, will improve insights with transaction data from multiple banks. Users can ask Finn for a complete overview of their travel expenses, for example, and it will retrieve travel-related transactions from both bunq and external banks.

In this way, bunq became one of the first banks in Europe to leverage AI in open banking.

Likewise, the partnership with Mastercard will offer bunq’s 12.5 million users across Europe a complete overview of their finances by utilising Mastercard’s Open Banking platform. As a result, users will be able to add accounts from any bank to their bunq app. 

“Our users live life without borders, effortlessly blending home, work, and travel,” says Bianca Zwart, Chief of Staff at bunq. “We’ve built the bunq app around their lifestyle, and this partnership takes it even further. By combining Mastercard Open Banking with bunq’s world-leading AI platform, the possibilities to enhance their experience are endless.” 

Powering improved customer experience with AI

Founded in 2012 in the Netherlands, bunq is a Dutch fintech and neobank licensed within the European Union and operating in 30 European countries. As a result of open banking, bunq has seen a surge in user engagement, with nearly 40% of surveyed users reporting an increase in their app use within two weeks of the launch.

Open banking features for bunq users are available in the Netherlands, France and Germany, with plans to continue scaling across Europe. It shared its partnership with Mastercard at the European edition of Money 20/20 in Amsterdam.

“We’re pleased to support a leading neobank like bunq, as they show a great example of how multiple benefits of open banking and AI can deliver an excellent user experience. This collaboration showcases our strong platform and reach across Europe and the opportunities for scaling on our global open banking network”, comments Bart Willaert, EVP, International Open Banking at Mastercard.  

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