For the primary time, UK neobanks have edged out conventional legacy banks in app downloads, marking a shift in shopper banking preferences, in accordance with a latest research by international software program firm SplitMetrics.
Its knowledge reveals that UK neobanks boast an estimated 71.78 million Android customers, narrowly surpassing the 71.58 million customers of legacy banks. This 12 months has additionally seen UK neobanks entice roughly 18.6 million new customers, in comparison with the 7.5 million added by conventional banks.
Among the many front-runners within the challenger financial institution class are Revolut with 15.6 million downloads, adopted by Monzo, Starling, Virgin Cash and First Direct. Conversely, the legacy banks seeing essentially the most progress embrace Lloyds, Barclays, Halifax, NatWest and HSBC.
The research, utilising knowledge from the App Radar by SplitMetrics platform, additionally highlights the rising reputation of buying and selling apps, which have attracted virtually 11 million new Android customers globally in 2024, exceeding their earlier peak in 2022. The main buying and selling apps by new customers are Commerce Republic, eToro, Robinhood, Buying and selling 212 and Constancy Investments.
Cash administration purposes within the UK have additionally seen enormous progress, with a record-setting 1.1 million new customers in 2024, surpassing predictions and former years’ figures. Plum leads this class, adopted by Moneybox, Snoop, HypeJar and Emma.
Fintech progress
Thomas Kriebernegg, normal supervisor at SplitMetrics Company, commented: “Finance is among the best sectors within the cell market, and it encompasses all types of varieties of apps; from retail banking by funding and crypto to B2B providers.
“With so many alternative gamers, it additionally makes it a really costly class in terms of person acquisition – as our report from earlier this 12 months revealed. It’s unsurprising as startups are disrupting the realm, however we even have conventional banks catching up with customers’ wants – and the latter have the person base for person acquisition.
“Our evaluation of the retail banking area, nonetheless, exhibits that fintech is now not a challenger however a dominant drive within the trade. Will this progress proceed into 2025 and past? Time will inform, however the work is just not over for fintech apps – the onerous work of retaining these hard-earned new customers begins now.”
In accordance with SplitMetrics, the cryptocurrency sector can also be displaying robust restoration after a difficult 2023. With 5.6 million downloads this 12 months, the sector is anticipated to finish the 12 months on a excessive, approaching the 2022 excessive of seven.2 million downloads. Outstanding amongst European crypto apps are Luno, Nexo, Blockchain.com, Bitpanda and Wirex.
An rising development throughout the crypto sector is the rise of crypto AI apps, which have already exceeded final 12 months’s whole with 556,000 downloads in 2024. The most well-liked of those embrace uTrading, Pionex, Stoic AI, Capitalise.ai and 3Commas.
