Dutch
neobank Bunq has applied for a banking license in Mexico, the company said,
opening a third regulatory front for the digital lender after a fresh US
application earlier this year and its existing European banking permit.

Dutch Neobank Bunq Applies
for Mexican Banking License

The filing
would let Bunq, which describes itself as Europe’s second-largest neobank,
offer full-service banking, multi-currency accounts and protected deposits in
Mexico, according to the company. Bunq did not disclose a target launch date or
capital commitment.

Mexican
banking authorizations run through the National Banking and Securities
Commission, known as the CNBV, in coordination with Banco de México and the
Ministry of Finance.

The Mexico
push comes roughly four months after Bunq refiled for a US national bank
charter with the
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in January, two years after
withdrawing its first attempt.

Founder and
Chief Executive Ali Niknam has framed the dual push as part of an effort to
serve customers who split their lives across countries.

“Bunq
is designed for people who live, work, and travel across borders, and as a
vital hub connecting the Americas, Mexico is a natural home for us,”
Niknam said in a statement. He added that the bank’s users “need a bank
that is safe, secure and easy to use, wherever they are.”

A Crowded Mexican Race
Bunq Is Joining Late

The
application places Bunq behind several digital banks already moving through
Mexico’s licensing pipeline. Revolut, the UK fintech valued at around $75
billion, received final operational approval
from the CNBV and Banco de México on October 20, 2025, becoming the first independent
digital bank to clear Mexico’s full licensing process from scratch.

Revolut’s
local entity, Revolut Bank S.A., is now opening accounts for a waiting list the
company estimated at nearly 200,000 people as of May 2025, with a stated
one-year target of 1.5 million customers.

Juan Miguel
Guerra, who runs the Mexican bank, has said the launch will lean on free
international transfers, an area where Bunq’s product would directly overlap.

Brazil’s
Nubank, the
largest digital bank in Latin America with around 94 million customers, is
further along the same path.

Its Mexican
subsidiary received CNBV approval in April 2025 to convert into a multiple
banking institution under the name Nubank S.A., and is now in the
systems-testing phase ahead of final operational sign-off, according to a
company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cross-Border Money Is the
Prize

Mexico’s
appeal for foreign digital banks rests on one of the world’s largest remittance
corridors. Inflows reached a record $63.3 billion in 2023, the bulk of it from
the United States, and the share of Mexican adults with a bank account remains
below most OECD peers.

Those
numbers are what neobanks targeting “global citizens,” as Bunq
describes its users, are trying to capture.

Other
foreign players have entered through different doors. Webull moved into the
country by acquiring Mexican investment app
Flink in November 2023 and picking up local brokerage Vifaru Casa de Bolsa as part of the
deal.

Australia-headquartered
Airwallex took the payments route, buying Mexican payment service
provider MexPago in January 2025 to support cross-border transactions for businesses. Neither pursued a
full deposit-taking license.

Aggressive Global
Pipeline, Mixed Execution

Bunq has
been pushing hard outside Europe. The company secured a US broker-dealer
license from FINRA in October 2025, launched flexible crypto staking
through a partnership with Kraken across the EU, and reached 20 million users in
September 2025,
placing it second in Europe behind Revolut’s 60 million.

The US
banking effort has not been smooth. Bunq filed with the FDIC in New York in
2023, withdrew the application in April 2024 citing regulatory issues, and
returned to the OCC in January 2026 under what Niknam has described as a more
favorable supervisory environment.

Mexico now
joins that pipeline, with no disclosed timeline on either authorization.

This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.

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