Everyday banking in Europe: accounts, neobanks and cards

Accounts and who may offer them

A payment account can be offered by a bank, by a payment institution or by an electronic money institution. All three are licensed and supervised, but only a bank's deposits are covered by the €100,000 deposit guarantee; the other two must safeguard your money instead. The Payment Accounts Directive gives every person legally resident in the EU the right to a basic payment account with a card and online payments, regardless of nationality or credit history, and requires every provider to publish a standard fee information document so accounts can be compared.

Neobank or traditional bank

A neobank is a bank without branches, run from an app. Several of the largest, including N26, bunq and Revolut's European entity, hold full banking licences, so deposits are guaranteed like at any bank. Others are payment or e-money institutions and safeguard funds instead. The licence, not the app, decides your protection. Beyond that the differences are practical: traditional banks offer branches, cash handling, overdrafts and mortgages; neobanks offer lower fees, instant notifications, multi-currency accounts and faster onboarding.

Paying across borders

The Single Euro Payments Area makes a euro transfer between any two EU accounts as cheap and fast as a domestic one. A business or landlord may not refuse your IBAN because it comes from another member state; this so-called IBAN discrimination is illegal under the SEPA regulation. Since 2025 every euro-area bank must offer instant payments, arriving within ten seconds, at no more than the price of an ordinary transfer.

Card payments abroad in another currency are where costs hide: a foreign-exchange mark-up on the card, and the dynamic currency conversion offered at the terminal, which is almost always worse than letting your own bank convert.

Credit cards and interest-free periods

A credit card is consumer credit and falls under the same directive as a personal loan, so it carries an APR. The interest-free period applies only when you repay the full statement balance by the due date; pay part of it and interest runs on the whole balance, often from the purchase date. A card used for purchases and cleared monthly costs its annual fee and nothing more. A card that revolves costs its APR, which is usually well above a personal loan.

Opening an account in another EU country

You can open an account with any EU bank that accepts you, and a neobank often accepts residents of many countries with one app. The basic-account right, however, is a right in the country where you legally reside. Expect identity verification, proof of address and, for some providers, a local tax number. Once the account exists, its IBAN is valid for salary, rent and direct debits anywhere in the EU.

How to compare

Use the fee information document that every provider must publish: monthly fee, card fee, cash withdrawal fees, foreign currency mark-up, and the cost of going overdrawn. Add the licence type and the guarantee that follows from it. For a credit card, add the APR, the length of the interest-free period and the annual fee.

Where to compare in your country

Fees and provider availability are national. Nordsek's country sites compare current accounts, neobanks and cards for residents of the Netherlands and Finland. Choose your country above.