Bunq becomes first challenger bank to join the TARGET payment network

Dutch challenger bank Bunq is the first digital bank to join the TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) network developed by the European Central Bank.

The move will give Bunq’s users access to instant payments with banks both in its native Netherlands, but also across Europe too. 

Bunq already offers instant payments through the EPC Instant Payment System (RT1) with participating European banks, but from today all payments sent by bunq users to any participating European bank will arrive instantly.

Ali Niknam, CEO and founder of Bunq, said: “We’re proud to be the first challenger bank to enable instant payments across Europe. Simply experience this amazing time saver with your next payment!”

As well as being able to send payments instantly, Bunq users will be able to receive money instantly when someone sends funds from another European bank. 

Bunq was recently named as one of the fastest-growing fintechs in Europe by the Financial Times, coming in at 15th place ahead of the likes of Scalable Capital and Capital On Tap.

The fintech also added a host of new features to its app following its latest update.

Bunq added a new ‘Friends’ tab, which enables users to see which friends have a Bunq account and where they are spending their money, and the ability to add loyalty cards from over 500 different stores to an account.

In the latest update, Bunq also added a bill splitting function, helping its users to ‘go Dutch.’