Has anyone here got an old (free) Bunq account. A few years ago, Bunq launched in the UK and offered a (mostly) free Euro-denominated account. Ali Niknam had a change of heart and withdrew from the UK market, but anyone with an existing (free) account could hold onto it until their card expired.
I then read that you would be given a savings account with a free virtual card or have to transfer to one of their numerous paid for accounts (€3 per month is their lowest offer). I can see a savings account has been set up but there’s nowhere to generate a virtual card. Does anyone else have a legacy free Bunq account?
Like you, I also opened a bunq account “back in the day” and have held on to it until now through various iterations.
I moved to the bunq Travel Card plan, then that was withdrawn and I was allowed to keep it until my virtual card expired. That happened earlier this year, and I then transitioned onto the new savings plan and was also able to order a virtual “bunq credit” card (really a secured credit product which involves “topping up” the credit card with funds, but behaves like a credit card so gives bunq slightly higher interchange fees).
I was unable to manually switch products, so had to involve their customer support. They archived my original bunq bank account (which had been supporting my Travel Card) and opened a new Savings Account for me manually. Unfortunately, this did mean that I now have a different IBAN. My old IBAN can be re-activated if I later upgrade bunq plan, apparently. I then manually opened a bunq Credit Card myself, which operates separately and can be topped up from the savings account.
The savings account limits the number of withdrawals per month but does pay some interest. I’m yet to use it really, but I’m keeping my account going for now as I do quite like bunq and could see myself using it more in the future (potentially).
Like you, I had to involve customer services as the flows on the app were very opaque and unsurprisingly trying to steer you for a paid for account.
So now I have a savings account paying 3.36% (not bad in the Euro zone) and a prepaid card with €50 on it added to Apple Pay. And 2 different (Dutch) IBANs, neither of which are the same as the legacy accounts.
My situation is exactly the same - and yes, you are right that the “Credit Card” now has an associated IBAN. It didn’t when they first launched it, but to support customers who are only on a Savings Plan, they have since added it as a feature so it can be topped-up directly.
There are withdrawal restrictions on the savings account to be aware of, although they are not too onerous, and the interest rate is (as you say) decent for the Eurozone.
My virtual card is in Apple Pay too, and seems to work fine.
They are one of the few providers offering a genuine non-GB coded IBAN on a Euro account available to UK residents (Bankera is the other one I’m aware of, although they are only e-money and Bunq is a real bank) so I intend to keep my account going if I can.
A local card may well be useful in the Netherlands too, I imagine, so I can pay with that next time I’m there if needed.
All in all, a decent offering but it does seem either very difficult, or actually impossible, to switch to it without manual intervention!