Currently there are somewhere around 256 neobanks in existence, according to Exton Consulting. These brands offer a digital-only experience that are perceived as customer-centric and easy to use, as in opening an account only takes a few minutes. They are also lower cost to use than their physical banking counterparts.

However, only a small handful of these banks have achieved substantial profitatbility. Their names will be familiar: Revolut, N26, Monzo, Nubank and Chime amongst them. The others, which are significant in number, are unlikely to be profitable for the foreseeable future, according to Accenture research, which revealed “the average UK neobank loses $11 per user yearly.”

Part of the problem is the rising cost of providing a service, whilst the margins generated per customer remain low. Finextra correctly reminds us that disrupting the traditional banking market was always going to be a long-haul business, and that it really needs large amounts of venture capital investing to keep the LTV/CAC ratio in good shape.

CAC is ‘customer acquisition cost’, and LTV is Life-Time Value in this case. The LTV is a measurement of the average revenue generated by a customer in a 1, 3 or 5 year period. Clearly, neobanks want this to be as high as possible, but it is one area where they are being challenged, as the average is around 15€ per customer per annum. Banks like N26 and Monzo obtain revenue mainly from “the low debit card interchange fees,” but this results in very low LTVs. Less travel and smaller purchases during the 2020 pandemic has had a big effect on this.

The CAC is calculated by taking the total money spent on customer acquisition and dividing it by the number of new customers. Neobanks do much better than traditional banks in this regard, “with an average CAC of neobanks around 30 euros versus 200 euros for incumbent banks,” Joris Lochy reports at Finextra.

Lochy says that what we are going to see this year is a switch from chasing growth to increasing profitability. Neobanks are being strongly encouraged by VC investors to provide more profitable products, such as investments and credit: products such as credit cards, overdrafts, salary advances and purchase financing. They are also likely to chase small business customers, and provide Banking-as-a-service services to other Fintechs or even banks.

It also follows that some neobanks will stop offering free services. They used these effectively to grow their customer base, but now they may need to charge more fees.

Threats are also coming from the incumbent banks, but perhaps the biggest threat is from Big Tech stepping into this space. As Lochy suggests, what the neobanks need to do is “find a niche where they can excel and not fight head to head with the large banks.”

Finding a niche

This is likely to come by restructuring and rethinking the product offering to provide an even more personalised service, probably in the credit sector. Some would also be better off by targeting a specific consumer group and tailoring their product offering to them. For example, the Longevity Bank is for Seniors, and there are ones focusing on women, freelancers and SMEs. Ultimately, what neobanks need to do to survive, is offer something that no other bank, credit union etc offers – that’s what ill really bring home the customers.