The promise was simple: a modern bank where your entire household could share one account, each person paying from it with their own card or phone. No more Tikkie (payment request app) gymnastics for groceries. No more “who owes what” spreadsheets. For years, Bunq delivered this seamlessly. Now, as the app crumbles under bizarre updates and customer service evaporates, Dutch families face a harsh truth, no other bank actually does what Bunq does.
The Feature That Refuses to Die
What makes this exodus uniquely painful is Bunq’s shared account architecture. The original poster, a customer since Bunq’s early days, describes the setup: one account under their name, visible to multiple family members in their apps, each linking personal cards or Apple Pay. Grocery runs, utility bills, and household expenses flow from a single pool without constant reimbursement.
Traditional Dutch banks offer machtigen (authorization), where you grant someone access to your account. Rabobank, ING, and ABN AMRO all provide this. But the experience differs sharply. You typically see the authorized account as a separate entity, not integrated into your main overview. Cards must be specially requested and often feel like an afterthought. The seamless, native integration that made Bunq’s approach revolutionary simply doesn’t exist elsewhere.
Why “Just Use Revolut” Misses the Point
Commenters frequently suggest Revolut as a Bunq replacement. The logic seems sound, both are fintech players with slick apps and modern features. Yet Revolut’s model centers on individual users with pots or vaults for budgeting, not true multi-user accounts. You get one IBAN (International Bank Account Number), with money partitioned visually but not functionally. Automatic direct debits can’t be routed to specific pots, breaking the workflow Dutch families rely on.
One user explains their Bunq system: a dedicated account for fixed monthly costs, where they deposit the exact total at the start of the month. Automatic payments flow without intervention. Revolut’s single-IBAN structure makes this impossible. You’d need to manually move money or risk failed payments, a step backward into administrative hassle.
The Traditional Bank Workaround: Machtigen Explained
Dutch banks have had decades to solve household banking. Their solution, machtigen, lets you authorize another person to access your account. Rabobank users report success: elderly parents authorize adult children, who receive cards in their own name linked to the parent’s account. ING and ABN AMRO offer similar functionality.
But the implementation reveals its age. The authorized account appears separately in your app, not merged with your personal overview. Getting a card requires explicit requests and paperwork. Multiple wearables or digital wallets? Possible at ABN AMRO, but clunky. The experience feels bureaucratic because it is, built for edge cases like managing an aging parent’s finances, not for modern households sharing expenses equally.
ASN: The Ethical Alternative That Isn’t Quite
ASN Bank emerges as the most-recommended alternative, praised for sustainability and customer service. Users switching from Bunq find the app functional and clean. Yet ASN remains a traditional bank with traditional limitations. Their machtigen system works, but lacks Bunq’s elegance. You can share with one other person, not a whole household. The interface prioritizes simplicity over innovation.
For those fleeing Bunq’s chaos, ASN offers stability but not equivalence. You trade fintech convenience for ethical banking and reliable support, a compromise many accept reluctantly.
The Pricing Paradox
Bunq’s decline stems partly from its business model. Plans start at €8.99 monthly, reaching €18.99 for Elite. Users tolerated the cost while the shared account feature delivered unique value. Now, with app quality dropping and support response times stretching to weeks, that equation breaks.
Trustpilot reviews reveal the tension: customers appreciate cashback, multiple IBANs, and budgeting tools, but complain about hidden restrictions. The favorable interest rate lasts only one year and caps at undisclosed amounts. Savings accounts limit withdrawals to twice monthly. An account block can leave you locked out for months, as one user experienced when their €2,400 rental deposit triggered unexplained security measures.
Why No One Fills the Gap
The market failure here is striking. Dutch fintech thrives, look at Adyen, Mollie, or the crypto sector. Yet household banking remains ignored. Several factors explain this:
First, regulatory complexity. True multi-user accounts blur liability and ownership. Who’s responsible for overdrafts? How do you handle divorce or household splits? Bunq’s model, one legal owner, multiple users, sidesteps this but creates its own risks.
Second, market size. The Netherlands has just 17 million people. Developing a regulated banking product for a niche use case offers limited returns compared to business banking or international remittances.
Third, incumbent apathy. Traditional banks already serve households through machtigen. Why invest in modernizing a working (if clunky) system? Their focus stays on mortgages, business accounts, and digital transformation of core services.
The Technical Reality Check
From a technical perspective, Bunq’s architecture likely uses a single master IBAN with sub-accounts or virtual IBANs for each user. Cards and digital wallets link to these virtual accounts, all drawing from the same balance pool. This requires sophisticated real-time authorization systems and clear spending hierarchy rules.
Traditional banks run on legacy core banking systems where accounts are siloed and rigid. Adding multi-user functionality means building middleware layers or undertaking costly core replacements. ASN’s recent app upgrade shows movement, but fundamental architecture changes take years.
What Households Actually Do Now
Faced with this gap, Dutch families adopt hybrid strategies:
- Primary + Secondary: Keep Bunq for shared expenses, open ASN for personal banking. Accept the €8.99 monthly as a household utility cost.
- Machtigen + Tikkie: Use traditional bank authorization for the account, supplement with Tikkie for ad-hoc splitting. Adds friction but works reliably.
- Revolut + Spreadsheets: Use Revolut’s pots for visual budgeting, manually track who spent what externally. Loses automation but gains modern app experience.
- Business Banking: Some open business accounts (like Qonto) which support multiple users better, though this violates terms of service for personal use.
None match Bunq’s original simplicity.
The Regulatory Wildcard
Dutch financial regulators (AFM and DNB) focus intensely on consumer protection and anti-money laundering. Bunq’s model, one owner, many users, creates transparency issues. If three housemates share an account, who’s the UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner)? How do you trace funds for AML (Anti-Money Laundering) purposes?
Traditional machtigen requires formal authorization with ID verification, creating clear audit trails. This bureaucracy exists for compliance reasons. Any fintech wanting to replicate Bunq’s ease must navigate these rules without adding friction, a nearly impossible balance.
Actionable Paths Forward
If you’re stuck in Bunq purgatory, consider these steps:
Test Machtigen First: Open a free ASN or ING account. Authorize your partner or housemate. Experience the workflow for two months. Can you tolerate the extra taps and separate account views?
Calculate True Cost: Bunq’s €8.99 monthly equals €108 yearly. If it saves two hours monthly of admin and Tikkie-chasing, that’s €4.50 per hour. Your time may be worth more.
Pressure Alternatives: Contact Revolut, N26, or Dutch neobank Knab. Ask about multi-user accounts. Customer demand drives product roadmaps. If enough households complain, priorities shift.
Hybrid Approach: Use Bunq only for the shared account, with minimum balance. Hold personal funds elsewhere. Limits exposure to their instability while preserving the core feature.
The Bigger Picture
This gap reflects a broader fintech failure: building for individuals, not communities. Most neobanks optimize for single-user experience, budgeting, investing, travel perks. Household financial management remains stuck in the 1990s, either through joint accounts (legally risky) or manual splitting (administrative hell).
Bunq accidentally solved this, then lost focus. Their “bomen” (trees) feature, e-SIM offerings, and crypto trading distracted from core banking. Users didn’t ask for these additions, they wanted reliable payments and stable shared accounts.
Final Verdict
The Dutch fintech market doesn’t lack innovation, it lacks focus on real household needs. Until a challenger bank builds true multi-user accounts with modern UX, families remain Bunq hostages. ASN offers an ethical exit, but not an equivalent one. Revolut delivers individual features, not household harmony.
The controversy isn’t that Bunq declined, it’s that no one else even tries to replace what made it special. For now, Dutch households must choose between fintech chaos and banking bureaucracy, with no perfect solution in sight. The shared banking revolution exists, it just lives in a crumbling app that its users can’t afford to leave.