Bunq Adds New Feature Allowing Shared Bank Accounts With Non-Users

Challenger bank bunq now has new options for customers for increased flexibility.

The bank announced a new feature called bunq +1, which means premium users will now be allowed to create a sub-account with someone else, who doesn’t have to be a premium user, for just €2.99 per month.

Bunq said users can create multiple sub-accounts, too, meaning a premium user can create one with a spouse or partner, another with their children, and more.

The benefit is that those invited through bunq +1 won’t have to undergo the usual €7.99 fee – the original user who invited them can just foot the €2.99 per month bill and the invited party will have the benefits of a bunq account, including depositing money, spending money and viewing transactions.

The feature could be a boost for parents trying to introduce their children to banking, a report in TechCrunch noted, allowing parents to transfer money to their children and children to use it as allowance — with parents keeping watchful eyes on the spending at all times, of course.

And business owners can utilize the service for adding employee corporate accounts. That way employees could have their own account and card, while the owners manage the account in a streamlined way.

For existing bunq users, the option to consolidate accounts via bunq +1 is still available, though existing users will still have to pay the €7.99 per month.

As the digital world becomes more inclusive and all-encompassing, banking apps for children, as bunq +1 can facilitate, have become more popular.

Revolut has added one, and so has Venmo.

The idea behind those kinds of apps is to give kids an early start with spending in adult ways, with ways to track how much money they spend and to start weaning off relying on their parents to buy things for them.

Current, a leader in the field of children banking apps, boasts over 500,000 accounts and had a successful Series B last year.