Dutch neobank Bunq goes on hiring spree, targeting digital nomads, as other fintechs slash jobs
Dutch digital bank Bunq is plotting re-entry into the U.K. to tap into a “large and underserved” market of some 2.8 million British “digital nomads.”
Pavlo Gonchar | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Dutch challenger bank Bunq told CNBC that it plans to grow its global headcount by 70% this year to over 700 employees, even as other financial technology startups have decided to cut jobs.
Bunq, which operates in markets across the European Union, is looking to expand into new regions including the U.K. and the United States, taking on the fintechs already in those countries, including the likes of Britain’s Monzo and Revolut, and American neobank Chime.
Bunq said it needs corresponding talent in those regions to support its global expansion ambitions. To that end, the firm said it plans to see out the year with 735 employees globally — up 72% from its 427 members of staff at the start of 2024.
“Bunq focusses on digital nomads who tend to roam the world,” Ali Niknam, Bunq’s CEO and co-founder, told CNBC via emailed comments.
So-called “digital nomads” are defined as people who travel freely while working remotely, using technology and the internet to work abroad from hotels, cafes, libraries, co-working spaces, or temporary housing.
“We’d love to be able to service our users wherever they go — given the regulatory environment we’re in, this results in us having to have a lot of extra people to make this happen,” Niknam added.
Bunq is currently in the process of applying for banking licenses in both the U.S. and U.K. Last year, the firm submitted an application for a federal banking license. And in the U.K., Bunq is awaiting a decision from financial regulators on an application to become a licensed e-money institution, or EMI.
The digital bank said it was actively looking to hire across sales and business development, product marketing, PR, affiliate marketing, and market analysis, as well as user support, development, and quality assurance.
Many of these positions will be part of a “tailored digital nomad” program that allows staff to work from anywhere in the world, Bunq said.
However, the firm stressed it’s not closing down office space and that many new hires would work in its offices, including in Amsterdam, Sofia, Istanbul, Munich, Paris, Dublin, Madrid, London, and New York City.
A contrast from jobs cuts at other fintechs
Over the past two years, one of the biggest stories in both the fintech and broader technology industry has been companies slashing jobs to cut back on the massive spending implemented during in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
The operating environment for fintech firms has gotten tougher, meanwhile, with inflation knocking consumer confidence and higher interest rates making it harder for startups to raise money.
In January last year, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase slashed 950 jobs. It was followed by payments giant PayPal, which reduced its global headcount by 2,000 people in early 2023, and then by another 2,500 jobs in early 2024.
Meanwhile, some fintechs are looking to artificial intelligence to take on a growing number of roles.
Swedish buy now, pay later firm Klarna, for instance, said last month that it was able to reduce its workforce from 5,000 to 3,800 over the past year from attrition alone. It added that it is looking to further cut employee numbers down to 2,000 through the use of AI in marketing and customer service.
“Our proven scale efficiencies have been enhanced by our investment in AI, which has driven down operating expenses and improved gross profits,” the company said in first-half earnings.
Klarna said that its average revenue per employee had risen 73% year-over-year, thanks in no small part to the internal application of AI.
Bunq’s Niknam said he doesn’t see AI as a way to help firms reduce headcount, however.
“We’ve been deploying AI systems and solutions years before they became mainstream, [but] in our experience AI empowers our employees to be able to do better by our users, more effectively and efficiently,” he told CNBC.
Bunq earlier this year reported its first full year of profitability, generating 53.1 million euros ($58.51 million) in net profit in 2023. The business was last valued privately by investors at 1.65 billion euros.
The Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, June 9, 2023.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Silicon Valley executives and financiers publicly opened their wallets in support of President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential run. The early returns in 2025 aren’t great, to say the least.
Following Trump’s sweeping tariff plan announced Wednesday, the Nasdaq suffered steep consecutive daily drops to finish 10% lower for the week, the index’s worst performance since the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
The tech industry’s leading CEO’s rushed to contribute to Trump’s inauguration in January and paraded to Washington, D.C., for the event. Since then, it’s been a slog.
The market can always turn around, but economists and investors aren’t optimistic, and concerns are building of a potential recession. The seven most valuable U.S. tech companies lost a combined $1.8 trillion in market cap in two days.
Apple slid 14% for the week, its biggest drop in more than five years. Tesla, led by top Trump adviser Elon Musk, plunged 9.2% and is now down more than 40% for the year. Musk contributed close to $300 million to help propel Trump back to the White House.
Nvidia, Meta and Amazon all suffered double-digit drops for the week. For Amazon, a ninth straight weekly decline marks its longest such losing streak since 2008.
With Wall Street selling out of risky assets on concern that widespread tariff hikes will punish the U.S. and global economy, the fallout has drifted down to the IPO market. Online lender Klarna and ticketing marketplace StubHub delayed their IPOs due to market turbulence, just weeks after filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and fintech company Chime is also reportedly delaying its listing.
CoreWeave, a provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure, last week became the first venture-backed company to raise more than $1 billion in a U.S. IPO since 2021. But the company slashed its offering, and trading has been very volatile in its opening days on the market. The stock plunged 12% on Friday, leaving it 17% above its offer price but below the bottom of its initial range.
“You couldn’t create a worse market and macro environment to go public,” said Phil Haslett, co-founder of EquityZen, a platform for investing in private companies. “Way too much turbulence. All flights are grounded until further notice.”
CoreWeave investor Mark Klein of SuRo Capital previously told CNBC that the company could be the first in an “IPO parade.” Now he’s backtracking.
“It appears that the IPO parade has been temporarily halted,” Klein told CNBC by email on Friday. “The current tariff situation has prompted these companies to pause and assess its impact.”
‘Cave rapidly’
During last year’s presidential campaign, prominent venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen backed Trump, expecting that his administration would usher in a boom and eliminate some of the hurdles to startup growth set up by the Biden administration. Andreessen and his partner, Ben Horowitz, said in July that their financial support of the Trump campaign was due to what they called a better “little tech agenda.”
A spokesperson for Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment.
Some techies who supported Trump in the campaign have taken to social media to defend their positions.
Venture capitalist Keith Rabois, a managing director at Khosla Ventures, posted on X on Thursday that “Trump Derangement Syndrome has morphed into Tariff Derangement Syndrome.” He said tariffs aren’t inflationary, are effective at reducing fentanyl imports, and he expects that “most other countries will cave and cave rapidly.”
That was before China’s Finance Ministry said on Friday that it will impose a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S. starting on April 10.
At Sequoia Capital, which is the biggest investor in Klarna, outspoken Trump supporter Shaun Maguire, wrote on X, “The first long-term thinking President of my lifetime,” and said in a separate post that, “The price of stocks says almost nothing about the long term health of an economy.”
However, Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian warned on Friday that Trump’s extensive raft of import tariffs are putting the U.S. economy at risk of recession.
“You’ve had a major repricing of growth prospects, with a recession in the U.S. going up to 50% probability, you’ve seen an increase in inflation expectations, up to 3.5%,” he told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy.
Former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates, left, and Steve Ballmer, center, pose for photos with CEO Satya Nadella during an event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Microsoft on April 4, 2025 in Redmond, Washington.
Stephen Brashear | Getty Images
Meanwhile, executives at tech’s megacap companies were largely silent this week, and their public relations representatives declined to provide comments about their thinking.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was in the awkward position on Friday of celebrating his company’s 50th anniversary at corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Alongside Microsoft’s prior two CEOs, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Nadella sat down with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin for a televised interview that was planned well before Trump’s tariff announcement.
When asked about the tariffs at the top of the interview, Nadella effectively dodged the question and avoided expressing his views about whether the new policies will hamper Microsoft’s business.
Ballmer, who was succeeded by Nadella in 2014, acknowledged to Sorkin that “disruption is very hard on people” and that, “as a Microsoft shareholder, this kind of thing is not good.” Ballmer and Gates are two of the 12 wealthiest people in the world thanks to their Microsoft fortunes.
C-suites may not be able to stay quiet for long, especially if the recent turmoil spills into next week.
Lise Buyer, who previously helped guide Google through its IPO and now works as an adviser to companies going public, said there’s no appetite for risk in the market under these conditions. But there is risk that staffers get jittery, and they’ll surely look to their leaders for some reassurance.
“Until markets settle out and we have the opportunity to access valuation levels, public company CEOs should work to calm potentially distressed employees,” Buyer said in an email. “And private company managements should refine plans to get by on dollars already in the treasury.”
— CNBC’s Hayden Field, Jordan Novet, Leslie Picker, Annie Palmer and Samantha Subin contributed to this report.
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