How do you set up a neobank?

It’s THE question of the moment. With the advent of fintechs and their accelerated growth in recent years, setting up your own neobank is becoming an accessible dream. You no longer need to internalise the majority of your resources. It is now possible to call on a plethora of interconnected partners to design, develop and manage a neobank.

Many companies have recognised the colossal growth potential behind this new range of services. In fact, offering your own customers, whether individuals or professionals, a payment service dedicated to the products they consume speeds up online purchases, guarantees retention and loyalty, increases satisfaction, and enables you to manage incremental revenues.

Let’s take an example For example, a restaurant chain can now set up an e-wallet service, enabling customers to load their e-wallets at any time and use them as soon as they enter one of the chain’s restaurants (regardless of location), without having to take out their card. Expenditure is immediately deducted from the customer’s electronic wallet, making it even easier to take advantage of promotional offers or cash back, all from the comfort of the customer’s own phone or from an on-site digital terminal. This example also lends itself well to the retail environment with chain stores. A prepaid closed-loop or open-loop payment card can also be added for on-site or online payments.

Another example For example, an organisation that provides services to businesses can offer to open a corporate account for its customers, enabling them to benefit from a whole range of related financial services: payroll cards, business expense cards, incentive cards, online media purchases, travel cards, works council cards, supplier payment management… all of these payment media and virtual sub-accounts can be used to manage business expenses, purchases and financial flows.

To sum up, launching a neobank is not just a question of fashion. It’s a real service that’s increasingly in tune with the needs of users and customers looking for an increasingly personalised, unhindered shopping experience, in every sphere of their lives. Flexibility, reactivity, real time and the digitalisation of payment (or reimbursement) via mobile or card alone are all requirements that will make your brand competitive and make a difference.

Not only does launching your own neobank enable you to diversify your range of services, it also helps you generate additional income and improve internal processes, keeping control of budgets and transactions.

Companies in all sectors are looking into the subject, so great is the interest.

Neobanking is all about digital payment services. You need to make a list of the financial products and services that best suit your project:

● Physical payment cards
● Virtual payment cards
● Prepaid or debit cards
● E-wallet or electronic purse
● Mobile payment
● Token
● Kitty and other virtual accounts
● BIN or shared BIN
● Fiduciary accounts

The list is long, and not all of them are relevant to all business sectors. For example, offering physical prepaid cards to an online media buying agency doesn’t really make sense. Just like offering an untokenised virtual card to a chain of stores that doesn’t have an e-commerce site. That’s why it’s so important to define your project from start to finish, and to study in detail your target audience’s various use cases and real needs.

In a previous article, we explained the basics of launching a fintech. We presented 4 key points: define your offer and use cases, define your target, work with a technological and legal partner such as a Programme Manager, and above all rely on a technical project manager. Of course, these first steps are just the foundations for launching a neobank. Other considerations include the management of KYC/KYB verification processes and customer support. Although setting up a neobank is now easy, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Regulations to combat money laundering, the financing of terrorism, the respect and protection of personal data and cybercrime are all frameworks that must be respected and followed throughout the customer lifecycle.

By working step by step, and with the right partner, you can launch your own neobank. But you’ll need to be a good listener, flexible and serious.