If you live in the EEA (European Economic Area) and are looking for an alternative digital bank to Monese, you’re in luck. There are many excellent Monese alternatives on the European market that should satisfy all your banking needs.
The best digital banks similar to Monese are bunq, N26, Revolut, Wittix, and Wise. They offer the best value for money and are available throughout the EEA. They are the best Monese alternatives.
Wise
- Free personal and business accounts
- The cheapest way to transfer money
- Receive payments like a local
- Convert and hold 54 currencies
- No hidden fees
Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, has been with us for more than 10 years now. It’s a great way to transfer money abroad because it uses the real exchange rate without huge markups.
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With the Wise account, you get a debit card for €7 that you can use in 200+ countries. There are no maintenance or monthly account fees, and you can seamlessly receive your salary, pension, and other direct payments to your account.
Just like Monese, the Wise account is easy to open online for both personal, freelance, and business purposes. You can open the Wise account worldwide, not just in the EEA.
And probably the best thing about the account is that you get local account details from 10 countries:
- Euro
- US dollar
- Canadian dollar
- Australian dollar
- Singapore dollar
- New Zealand dollar
- British pound
- Romanian lei
- Hungarian forint
- Turkish lira
Although Wise isn’t a bank and your money isn’t insured by a central bank or government institution in any country, your money is held in established financial institutions, so it’s separate from their own accounts and not accessible except for their original purpose.
The Wise debit card allows you to spend money worldwide with low FX fees and zero transaction fees. It’s currently available for multi-currency account-holder residents in the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Switzerland, and EEA.
Read more in our Wise review.
Revolut
- Free and paid accounts
- Personal and business
- Budget & Analytics
- Get paid early
- Crypto trading
- Instant international money transfers
- Daily discounts and cashback
- Great for traveling and sending money abroad
Download the Revolut app on your phone and enjoy a straightforward account opening process. There are no credit checks, which is very similar to the Monese account opening process.
Revolut is very similar to Wise and Monese in that it lets you wire the money internationally with no hidden fees at the actual “exchange rate,” so you’ll know upfront how much you’ll be paying for the transfer.
If you’re into investing, you’ll be happy to know that Revolut offers groundbreaking crypto investing, but also stock and commodities trading.
You can invest not only in Bitcoin but 20 additional cryptocurrencies varying from the well-known Ethereum (ETH) to some that I’ve never heard of, to be honest, like Loopring (LRC) and the Graph (GRT).
Revolut stock trading allows investing in fractional shares of over 850 stocks from as little as $1. You can also invest in silver or gold on the commodities side.
There are so many cool features with Revolut that it’s no wonder it has more than 15 million customers worldwide, but mainly in the UK and the EEA.
N26
- Personal and business accounts
- Free payments worldwide
- Optional metal card
- Sub-accounts
- No monthly fees
- No minimum balance
- Early paycheck
- Cashback and exclusive discounts
- Budgeting
N26 is a German bank founded more than eight years ago, and they’re considered veterans in the digital banking space. Although it pulled out of the UK market, it is still going strong in Europe and is even expanding into other territories like the USA.
They have four accounts available:
- Standard (free)
- Smart (€4.90)
- You (€9.90)
- Metal (€16.90)
Accounts have almost no fees, and its paid plans are an excellent choice for travelers because of free ATM withdrawals worldwide and free and unlimited payments in any currency, wherever you are. They also offer all sorts of insurances, from medical to phone insurance.
Their app is straightforward to use and gives you a complete breakdown of your spending so you can exactly see which spending categories you can improve on. You can also save money with the auto-roundup feature and by establishing separate spaces for savings.
N26 has a 3.8-star rating out of 5 on Trustpilot, with 63% of reviewers giving it an excellent mark and 21% a bad one.
bunq
- Easy to open an online account
- Personal and business accounts
- Monthly fees from €2.99-€17.99
- Great for traveling
- Available only in EEA
- Plants trees for every €100 you spend
- Budgeting and analytics
- Metal card available
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bunq was founded all the way back in 2012 and has expanded to all markets in the European Union, Norway, and Iceland in 2019.
To open their account, simply visit their website or download the bunq app. They are quick to respond after you fill out your personal information and verify your documents.
bunq is well-known for their swanky metal card, which you can get if you prepay one of their premium accounts for 12 or 24 months, respectively.
By using the metal card, you’ll also be planting a tree for every €100 that you spend, plus get purchase protection and an extended warranty.
You can have up to 25 bank accounts with their own unique IBANs. You can manage them on your bunq app and online on a desktop, which is handy, especially for businesses.
Bunq has a partnership with Wise to get you some of the cheapest money transfers and international payments by using the real exchange rate.
Wittix
- Multi-currency IBAN accounts
- Personal and business accounts
- 75 currencies supported
- Debit cards and virtual cards
- SWIFT Payments across the globe
Wittix is based in Las Vegas, but it’s licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Lithuania.
It offers both personal and business accounts so that you can easily manage your everyday financial operations. If you’re not satisfied with only having a virtual card on your Wittix app, you can get a plastic card for €9 and an additional €4.9 per month.
The Wittix account itself is free if you’re in the EEA and €9.90 per month if you’re outside of it. The bad news is that there is a fee for incoming and outgoing SEPA transfers, but internal transfers are free.
The Bottom Line
If you dislike Monese or were disappointed by them for some reason, the digital banks that we listed above should be an excellent choice. They offer both personal and business accounts that are free or low-priced, are widely available throughout Europe, and are fan-favorites.
Some of them also offer inexpensive money transfers across international borders, but also very fancy and distinct metal cards that offer even more perks such as planting trees (bunq), worldwide fee-free ATM withdrawals and payments (N26), or up to 5 junior accounts, 0.65% interest rate, and different types of insurance, such as travel and medical insurance (Revolut).
