For the first time, UK neobanks have edged out traditional legacy banks in app downloads, marking a shift in consumer banking preferences, according to a recent study by global software company SplitMetrics.
Its data reveals that UK neobanks boast an estimated 71.78 million Android users, narrowly surpassing the 71.58 million users of legacy banks. This year has also seen UK neobanks attract approximately 18.6 million new users, compared to the 7.5 million added by traditional banks.
Among the front-runners in the challenger bank category are Revolut with 15.6 million downloads, followed by Monzo, Starling, Virgin Money and First Direct. Conversely, the legacy banks seeing the most growth include Lloyds, Barclays, Halifax, NatWest and HSBC.
The study, utilising data from the App Radar by SplitMetrics platform, also highlights the growing popularity of trading apps, which have attracted almost 11 million new Android users globally in 2024, exceeding their previous peak in 2022. The leading trading apps by new users are Trade Republic, eToro, Robinhood, Trading 212 and Fidelity Investments.
Money management applications in the UK have also seen huge growth, with a record-setting 1.1 million new users in 2024, surpassing predictions and previous years’ figures. Plum leads this category, followed by Moneybox, Snoop, HypeJar and Emma.
Fintech growth
Thomas Kriebernegg, general manager at SplitMetrics Agency, commented: “Finance is one of the most competitive sectors in the mobile market, and it encompasses all kinds of types of apps; from retail banking through investment and crypto to B2B services.
“With so many different players, it also makes it a very expensive category when it comes to user acquisition – as our report from earlier this year revealed. It is unsurprising as startups are disrupting the area, but we also have traditional banks catching up with consumers’ needs – and the latter have the user base for user acquisition.
“Our analysis of the retail banking space, however, shows that fintech is no longer a challenger but a dominant force in the industry. Will this growth continue into 2025 and beyond? Time will tell, but the work is not over for fintech apps – the hard work of retaining those hard-earned new users begins now.”
According to SplitMetrics, the cryptocurrency sector is also showing strong recovery after a challenging 2023. With 5.6 million downloads this year, the sector is anticipated to end the year on a high, approaching the 2022 high of 7.2 million downloads. Prominent among European crypto apps are Luno, Nexo, Blockchain.com, Bitpanda and Wirex.
An emerging trend within the crypto sector is the rise of crypto AI apps, which have already exceeded last year’s total with 556,000 downloads in 2024. The most popular of these include uTrading, Pionex, Stoic AI, Capitalise.ai and 3Commas.