If I were to explain it to my daughter, I would say something like this: a traditional bank is like a place you have to physically go to in order to do things with your money. It has offices, counters and opening hours. A neobank, on the other hand, is a bank that lives inside your mobile phone. You don’t need to go anywhere: everything happens in an app that you download from a digital/online marketplace.
Beyond the metaphor, the key difference lies in their origins. A traditional bank was built around a network of branches and physical processes that, over time, became digitised. A neobank was born directly in the digital environment, designed as an app for our smartphones.
This means that its product, technology and user experience were designed from the outset to operate in real time and with total flexibility. With less friction and a logic closer to that of a technology platform than a traditional bank. And now it is becoming more analogue.
In practice, banks and neobanks do many of the same things: open accounts, offer cards, facilitate payments, allow savings or investments. But they do so with a lighter structure, heavily supported by data and with a greater capacity to integrate new digital services in a more flexible way. They add customers in a very agile way, without the need to grow in physical network or structure, and continuously adjust the experience to market developments.
In this context, it is easier to understand why some of these players are expanding their value proposition and growing at a rate that can no longer be explained solely by the traditional banking category.
Why are neobanks expanding their proposition beyond finance?
In recent years, we have seen how some neobanks have ceased to define themselves solely by their current account or card. Their evolution has been broader and more progressive: from solving a specific financial problem to building integrated propositions that accompany the user at different moments in their digital life.
This movement does not usually happen abruptly. It starts with small additions and ends up shaping an ecosystem.
How does a digital offering evolve when it reaches scale?
Neobanks were born out of a need to solve very specific problems: opaque fees, slow processes, and a fragmented experience. Technology made it possible to simplify what was previously complex.
Once that first layer was consolidated, the natural question became what else could be integrated into the same experience. In many cases, the evolution of their value proposition has followed a progressive logic: investment, currency exchange, insurance, business accounts, loyalty programmes, or premium subscriptions have been incorporated into the ecosystem.
Some have started by focusing on residential customers and, over time, have expanded their offering to the business segment; others have followed the opposite path. The result is usually a portfolio that ends up covering both areas.
The user profile has also changed. It is no longer limited to young segments. Adoption has spread within the family environment itself: parents opening a first digital account for their children, or children introducing their parents to new ways of saving, investing or managing their money from their mobile phones, attracted by the simplicity and perception of greater control.
When customers interact with the platform on a recurring basis, the scope for expansion widens.
In this process, some players have begun to incorporate eSIM-based mobile connectivity or MVNO-type agreements. Not as a core activity, but as a complementary feature within a broader experience, especially in the context of travel or international mobility.
The key is not so much the sector to which they belong as the coherence of the whole and the ability to become an everyday financial application, where recurrence, simplicity and integration strengthen the relationship with the customer.
What role do new technologies play in this expansion?
Technology not only allows new products to be created; it allows them to be integrated seamlessly.
The eSIM, for example, eliminates the need for physical support and facilitates the remote activation of mobile plans. This reduces barriers to entry and opens up the possibility for digital platforms from different verticals to incorporate connectivity as part of their offering.
It is not a question of replacing traditional operators, but of integrating services that previously required separate processes.
As has happened in other sectors, when a technology simplifies distribution, new models emerge. We saw this with on-demand content, e-commerce and digital financial services. Now we are beginning to see it in the field of connectivity.
What does this movement mean for the market?
When companies that did not originally belong to the telecommunications sector begin to offer connectivity, even if only as a complementary service, new competitive dynamics are created.
On the one hand, there may be an impact on customer acquisition and pressure on revenues in certain segments, especially those that are more digital and frequent travellers. Some industry analyses estimate that, if these models become established on a large scale, the combined effect of customer loss and pressure on ARPU could reach significant figures by the end of the decade in certain markets.
On the other hand, the same phenomenon opens up opportunities for collaboration. Digital platforms can become additional distribution channels for traditional offerings, provided that balanced and sustainable contractual models are designed.
As with many transformations, the effect is neither linear nor exclusively disruptive. It is more of a reconfiguration of relationships.
How can these opportunities be analysed?
When looking at this evolution with perspective, four key elements tend to emerge.
- The first is the customer. Do they value specialisation or integration more? Do they prefer to manage each service separately or within a unified ‘financial super app’ experience?
- The second is each company’s own assets. Infrastructure, technology, brand, customer base, regulation and operational capacity determine how far each player can go.
- The third is the context: technological maturity, eSIM penetration, local regulation and market behaviour. Not all geographies evolve at the same pace.
- And finally, the fourth is the cross-cutting view. Observing how companies from different sectors expand their value proposition helps to understand that these types of movements are not isolated. Neobanks that integrate connectivity, or content platforms that add advertising and live events, respond to the same logic: building broader ecosystems around the customer.
What lines of action are usually considered in this scenario?
In contexts where sectoral boundaries are blurred, the response usually combines prevention, exploration and continuous learning.
One line of action is to reinforce a structured wholesale approach, with clear agreements aligned with existing regulatory frameworks, which avoid unbalanced dynamics in the value chain.
Another is to explore the presence of proprietary offerings on third-party digital platforms, prioritising those players with greater disintermediation capacity or with the intention of launching their own services.
A third consists of establishing constant monitoring mechanisms: identifying early movements, analysing the real impact on the market and activating retention measures when necessary.
It is not a question of reacting when the change is already consolidated, but of understanding it as it happens.
Are we facing a structural change?
Perhaps the most relevant thing is not that a neobank incorporates eSIM or that a digital platform expands its perimeter. What is significant is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to clearly separate sectors that previously seemed independent.
Finance, connectivity, e-commerce and digital services are beginning to coexist within integrated experiences. Customers do not organise their digital lives by industry, but by utility and simplicity. And that is where new opportunities arise: at the intersections.
Many transformations begin as an additional feature and, over time, end up redefining the framework in which companies operate. Therefore, more than the visible movement, what matters is what that movement anticipates.
As in the story of Jericho, the challenge is not usually the wall itself, but daring to take the first step. The first step seems small, even symbolic, but it is the one that starts the process that ultimately makes change possible. Understanding that moment and not holding back out of excessive caution often makes all the difference.
