Skip to main content
Back to blog
  • Fintech

Updated 14 min read

Neobanks in 2027. Profitable, and coming for the main account

Revolut, Nubank, Monzo and Chime all turn a profit now. What 12 reports and their results say about the race for the salary account

Emily Carter

Fintech and banking

ShareLinkedInXEmail

Revolut made £1.7 billion before tax in 2025. Nubank now earns more than $1 billion in a single quarter. Neobanks used to be the loss-making apps. Today the leaders earn higher returns on equity than most incumbent banks.

This shift runs through 12 of the 65 reports we read, from McKinsey, BCG, Accenture and Visa. We held them up against the latest results of Revolut, Nubank, Monzo and Chime.

The prize is the main account. In the UK, incumbents are still the primary bank for 55 to 65 percent of their customers. But many people move their money to a challenger soon after payday. Whoever holds the everyday account gets the data, the deposits and the next product.

The reports point to five moves neobanks are making on the main account. For each one, we looked at what a bank can do about it in 2027.

The first move explains where the money for all of this comes from.

Sign up with email

The short version

  • The leaders are profitable at scale. Revolut reported £1.7 billion of profit before tax for 2025. Nubank earned $1.06 billion in the second quarter of 2026, a 33% return on equity.
  • Primacy is splitting in two. In the UK, the share of people paid into their primary account barely moved from 2023 to 2025. Digital primacy fell about 6 points (McKinsey).
  • The main account has become a product. Revolut’s primary-bank customers grew 45% in 2025, faster than its 30% customer growth. Chime launched a tier for members who deposit $3,000 or more a month.
  • Licenses bring the balance sheet. Fintechs filed 21 US bank charter applications in 2025, against one in 2024 (McKinsey).
  • The cost gap pays for the fight. Leading UK neobanks run on 200 to 250 staff per million customers. Large incumbents need 700 to 1,100 (McKinsey).
  • Business accounts are next. Monzo’s business customers grew 45% to 905,000 in its year to March 2026.

1. Profit came first. Now it pays for the main account

For ten years the standard view of neobanks was a great app with no profit behind it. That view is out of date.

McKinsey’s Global Banking Annual Review 2026 counts 69 million retail and business customers at Revolut and 131 million at Nubank. Both earn more on their equity than most incumbents: about 35% at Revolut and about 30% at Nubank. McKinsey’s banking team says the two have broken the old trade-off between growth and returns.

The latest results, from the companies themselves, as of October 2026:

  • Revolut, full year 2025: revenue up 46% to £4.5 billion, profit before tax up 57% to £1.7 billion, a 38% margin. Its fifth profitable year in a row.
  • Nubank, second quarter of 2026: revenue of $5.9 billion, up 39%. Net income of $1.06 billion, the first quarter above $1 billion. 139 million customers.
  • Monzo, year to March 2026: revenue up 39% to £1.7 billion. Adjusted profit before tax of £172.6 million (£87.3 million before adjustments). Its third profitable year.
  • Chime, second quarter of 2026: revenue of $670 million, up 27%, and net income of $28 million. Its second profitable quarter in a row under US accounting rules.
Figure 1. Customers of four neobanks, latest reported date (million)
NeobankCustomers
Nubank (June 2026)138.9
Revolut, retail (December 2025)68.3
Monzo (March 2026)15.2
Chime, active members (June 2026)10.4

Source: Nu Holdings Q2 2026 results; Revolut Annual Report 2025; Monzo Annual Report 2026; Chime Q2 2026 results. Each company counts customers its own way. Chime counts only members who moved money in the last month.

The UK shows the same shift across a whole market. McKinsey tracked eight leading UK neobanks. Together they made more than £1.2 billion of profit in 2025, against about £250 million of combined losses in 2020. Their deposits grew about five times from around £15 billion.

BCG notes that Revolut grew its customer base by more than 40% in 15 months, passing 70 million customers in 2026. It sees the same strength across fintech. Among the 85 largest public fintechs, 74% are now profitable, up from 68% in 2024.

Where does the profit come from? Mostly from a cheaper machine. McKinsey counts 200 to 250 full-time staff per million customers at leading UK neobanks, against 700 to 1,100 at large incumbents. BCG puts many traditional banks’ cost-to-income ratio above 60%, against about 35% at well-run digital banks. Revolut cut its cost to serve a customer from about £25 in 2022 to about £21 in 2025 while nearly tripling its customer count (McKinsey).

For the main account, profit buys time. A profitable neobank can pay for savings rates, rewards and credit for years without asking investors first.

What to do in 2027: look past the neobanks’ app ratings and benchmark their cost to serve and return on equity. That cost gap will fund their offer for your customers’ salaries.

2. The salary still lands at the old bank. The everyday has moved

McKinsey’s UK report has the clearest picture of this. Incumbents still hold primary status for 55 to 65 percent of their customers. Neobanks hold 15 to 25 percent.

But the salary is a weaker signal than it looks. From 2023 to 2025, the share of UK customers paid into their primary current account was about flat. Transaction primacy fell about 2 points and digital primacy about 6. Many people leave their pay with the incumbent because changing payroll is a hassle. Soon after payday, they move their spending money to a challenger. The incumbent keeps the salary. The challenger becomes the bank they use every day.

Figure 2. Change in UK primary current-account measures, 2023 to 2025 (percentage points)
MeasureChange
Salary paid into the account0
More than 10 transactions a month-2
More than 20 app logins a month-6

Source: McKinsey, “The decade to redefine UK banking”, September 2026 (Finalta by McKinsey data). McKinsey reports the salary share as about zero.

Neobanks and fintechs now hold about 27 percent of all UK banking relationships, up from low single digits a decade ago.

Other markets look similar:

  • US. Only 4 percent of new checking customers pick their existing bank without shopping around, down from 25 percent in 2018. McKinsey also sees more people split their salary account from their primary account, with a standing transfer from the old bank to a fintech.
  • Europe. In six European markets, customers held accounts at 2.6 banks on average in 2025, up from two in 2021 (McKinsey).
  • Globally. Accenture found 61% of banking customers had stayed with their main bank for seven years or more. Many of them are “lazy loyalists” who stay out of habit, not enthusiasm.

This matters because primacy pays. McKinsey finds a primary bank is three to four times more likely to be considered for the next product, and about twice as likely to cross-sell one. Whoever owns the daily app owns the next loan.

What to do in 2027: track engagement primacy (logins, card transactions, bills paid) next to salary deposits. Treat a standing transfer out on payday as an early churn signal, not a normal habit.

3. Neobanks now sell the main account as a product

The leading neobanks no longer wait for customers to make them primary. They pay for it.

Revolut. In 2025, the number of customers using Revolut as their primary bank grew 45%, while its user base grew 30%. McKinsey, citing Revolut, puts self-reported primary users at 19 percent, up from 11 percent in 2023. Local account numbers now let customers in 13 European markets receive their salary straight into Revolut. Subscriptions brought in £708 million in 2025, up 67%, about 16 percent of group revenue.

Monzo. 49% of Monzo’s 10.4 million monthly active users call it their primary bank. Deposits rose 55% to £25.7 billion, and deposits per active user reached £2,462. 1.6 million customers pay for a subscription plan.

Chime. Chime says most of its 10.4 million active members use it as their primary financial relationship. In April 2026 it launched Chime Prime for members with $3,000 or more of direct deposits a month. The tier offers a 3.75% savings rate and 5% cash back in a category the member picks. Chime says Prime members bring in more than twice the revenue of an average active member.

Nubank. Nubank says it leads Brazil in primary banking relationships. Customers who use it as their primary bank show delinquency at roughly half the portfolio average. In July 2026 it launched Croma, a tier that rewards customers for bringing more of their financial lives to Nubank.

The pattern is the same in four markets: they reward the deposit itself. McKinsey’s UK team describes the two tools banks have: loyalty programs that reward salary, tenure and product depth, and subscriptions that sell everyday benefits for a monthly fee.

What to do in 2027: pick one model per customer segment and give it a clear job, as McKinsey suggests. Then design the payday moment itself. It is the one screen where the salary either stays or leaves.

4. Bank licenses turn attention into deposits and loans

Accenture counts around 700 digital banks and wallets. For years they were strong on flow, meaning payments, and weak on stock, meaning deposits and loans. They won ground in international payments, youth accounts and small unsecured loans. Yet after a quarter century of digital disruption, not one new entrant has reached the global top 200 banks by assets.

Licenses are changing that. McKinsey counts 21 US bank charter applications in 2025, against one in 2024, with approvals about 40 percent faster than usual. The moves of the past year:

  • Revolut’s UK bank left its restricted start-up phase in March 2026. The same month, Revolut filed for a US national bank charter.
  • Nubank won US approval to set up a national bank in January 2026 (McKinsey, citing Nubank). In August 2026 it launched its bank in Mexico with 16 million customers.
  • Monzo gained a banking license in Ireland to serve customers across Europe (McKinsey).

A license gives a neobank cheap deposits to lend. Revolut’s lending book more than doubled to £2.2 billion in 2025, yet its loan-to-deposit ratio was only 6.2%. That leaves a lot of room. McKinsey’s UK team sees Revolut moving toward the roughly £1.7 trillion UK mortgage market. In the US, BCG notes Chime started Instant Loans of up to $500 in 2025.

Savings and wealth are the other half. McKinsey estimates £500 billion to £700 billion of UK savings could move from deposits into investments over the next decade.

There is a catch, and McKinsey names it. A charter removes the partner bank, and with it the buffer. The fintech becomes the bank and carries every rule change itself. Investors may also start valuing it like a bank.

What to do in 2027: defend the products where you still lead, mostly mortgages, protection and larger loans. Then keep the money inside the bank as it moves from deposits into investments. McKinsey calls this turning deposit outflows into wealth inflows.

5. Business accounts are the next main account

Neobanks are now running the same playbook with small businesses.

Monzo’s business customers grew 45% to 905,000 in the year to March 2026, about 1 in 7 UK businesses. Revolut ended 2025 with 767,000 business customers, up 33%. Revolut Business now brings in 16% of group income.

McKinsey explains why this is dangerous for banks. Business primacy is won early, when a company is formed. It is then reinforced by daily payments, expenses and payroll, not by lending. In the UK, more than 60 percent of commercial banking revenue already sits outside lending.

Larger clients are moving too. In Visa’s survey of commercial banks, 84% report moderate or significant pressure from fintechs. Three in four say at least a quarter of their business clients are moving funds away from their main bank. McKinsey’s wallet-share survey finds corporates keep about 73 percent of their wallet with primary banks, and anchor banks win up to three times the wallet share of noncore banks. About 40 percent of corporates are open to nonbank financing over the next three years.

What to do in 2027: be there when the company is formed, with the account, payroll and expense cards in one place. A bank that only holds the credit line will keep the risk and lose the data.

Where the reports disagree

Who customers trust. McKinsey’s 2025 European survey (20,900 people) found, for the first time, slightly higher trust in fintechs and digital banks than in traditional banks: 8.3 against 7.9 on a 10-point scale. Yet in McKinsey’s June 2026 UK survey, 64 percent of AI users would trust their primary bank most to offer AI services, against 8 percent for an independent fintech. McKinsey’s April 2026 survey has 62 percent of consumers trusting their primary bank most with gen AI financial services, against 19 percent for a big tech company. Accenture finds 86% of consumers would trust their main bank to deliver AI assistants. My read: people trust the neobank app for everyday money, and still trust the old bank more with new things.

Whether the US follows. BCG expects European neobanks to keep taking share, but sees the US as a harder market. Fewer than 4% of Americans are unbanked, digital acquisition is expensive, and trusted incumbents spend heavily on their own apps. BCG expects US success to be selective and niche. Chime’s 10.4 million active members next to Nubank’s 139 million customers make the point. Revolut and Nubank are applying for US charters anyway.

Whether the economics survive lending. McKinsey’s UK report leaves it open. Neobanks proved they can win customers and deposits profitably. Mortgages and larger loans need more capital and long credit histories.

What AI agents do to deposits. McKinsey estimates that $23 trillion of the world’s $70 trillion of consumer deposits sits in checking accounts that pay close to nothing. If AI agents moved just 5 to 10 percent of balances to better rates, bank deposit profits could fall by 20 percent or more. That threat hits whoever holds the deposits, and neobanks now hold a lot more of them.

What I’m watching in 2027

  • How fast Revolut moves UK customers into full current accounts, and how many of them switch their salary.
  • Whether Chime Prime moves the share of members who send it $3,000 or more a month.
  • Nubank’s and Revolut’s first steps as US banks.
  • Whether UK digital primacy keeps falling, or the 6-point drop stops.

We’ve been lucky to design for neobanks. We worked with Oxygen, a neobank that grew from 0 to 100K+ users, and with SadaPay, which passed 15M+ downloads before Papara acquired it. In both, the moment that mattered most was payday: how fast the salary showed up, and how clearly the app showed what was left to spend.

Today a main account has to be won again every payday.

Sources

Read next

Let's talk

Write Sergey on LinkedIn
Write Alexandra on LinkedIn
Write Emin on LinkedIn
Have questions? Ask AI
ChatGPT
Claude
Perplexity
Opens a new chat with context about us pre-loaded — ask anything

We’ll reply within 24 hours with case studies, a timeline, and an estimate.

Prefer email? Write to hi@humbleteam.com
All set – our team’s on it. Expect a reply soon.
Send another one
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Have questions? Ask AI
ChatGPT
Claude
Perplexity
Opens a new chat with context about us pre-loaded — ask anything
Europe
Národní 135/14, Prague
Middle East
UAE, Dubai, Internet City Offices
Services by industryCompare usHealthtechSaaSDubaiLondonBlogFor AI SaaS
We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience,
serve personalised ads or content, and analyse our traffic.
By clicking "Accept All", you consent to our use of cookies.
Accept all
Decline
Privacy policy