Interplay Between Digital-Only Strategy and Financial Performance: A Case of Neobanks

The high level of digitalization of financial products and services changed the banking landscape, leading to the emergence of digital banks, or neobanks. Despite the further advancement of digitalization and the rapidly growing customer base, many digital banks left the market just a few years after being launched. This chapter analyzes the medium-term financial performance of digital banks as a proxy measurement of their strategic success. The annual financial figures of 10 digital banks from different countries are compared with the corresponding figures of 13 traditional banks, capturing the growth-oriented loss-making features of the digital-only banking business model. The financial analysis is complemented by the four case studies, which describe the two successfully realized strategies of digital banks and the two failed strategies and derive conclusions on the factors of neobanks’ strategic success. The chapter also reviews the reasons behind the growth of digital banks and presents the neobanks’ systematic classification.