Today, I’m going to talk to you about the banking sector, and more specifically online banks and neobanks. You are aware that traditional banks (those which, like BNP Paribas or Société Générale, have physical branches) charge more or less significant fees to their customers, even if there is no problem of discovered. These fees are usually listed as account maintenance fees or credit card fees.
So I said to myself that it’s still abusive on their part, especially if you see the tempting offers offered by online banks. So I went for an overview of some comparisons of online banks. And I realized that this small world is more competitive today than it was ten years ago. I therefore invite you to review with me the current online banking market.
As its name suggests, online banking has taken advantage of the evolution of the Internet to offer inexpensive services for French households. Some traditional establishments sniffed out the cost very early on and became, in a way, the forerunners of online banking. The precursors are only two:
However, the low enthusiasm of the French for Internet services has forced these two establishments to backtrack. Thus, we had to wait until the early 2000s to see new establishments settle on the Internet. This is about:
Taking advantage of the increasing mobility of users (and the development of technologies for smartphones), new online banks have turned to mobile. They are therefore simply called “mobile banks”:
Although they only have a few years under their belt, Hello Bank and Soon are already among the behemoths in the online banking market. And I have no doubt that this is also the case for N26, Orange Bank and Revolut Bank.
You should know that most online banks generally depend on large historical banking groups. Thus, this is particularly the case of Boursorama, which depends on Société Générale. For its part, Fortuneo is also backed by the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa group. The same goes for ING Direct, which is part of the Dutch ING group, for Hello Bank, which belongs to BNP Paribas. I would point out that the source of income for online banks is currently based on the profitability of bank cards and the multiplication of users. Some neobanks now offer consumer loans or mortgages, which are not yet sufficiently adopted by customers.