The Netherlands-based neobank bunq has been fined in its home market after a failure to respond to online fraud complaints past a deadline window
Neobank bunq has been fined $196,000 (€170,000) in the Netherlands for failing to handle and respond to online fraud complaints from clients.
The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) issued the fine to bunq after finding in 2023 and 2024 the digital bank had failed to respond to a total of seven client complaints by its deadline.
Clients contacted bunq after losing tens of thousands of euros to online fraud several years ago. The AFM found bunq had not responded to the complaints several weeks after the 15 day deadline upon receiving the complaint.
bunq had compensated the seven clients and “did act in their interests”, which helped bring its fine down from €200,000, to €170,000.
Jos Heuvelman, AFM Board Member, said: “It is essential for trust in the financial sector that complaints are dealt with properly and in time.
“Clients should be able to count on their complaints being taken seriously, in particular when they are the victims of fraud.”
In 2024, bunq paid out €10m to clients who were victims of online fraud and scams, significantly higher than the €200,000 it compensated victims in 2023.
According to bunq’s fraud reporting policies, it informs clients and customers to submit a fraud report from its dedicated page. bunq then contacts the client/customer’s bank once the report has been submitted.
Past bunq fines
In August 2025, bunq was fined $3m (€2.6m) from the Dutch Central Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, due to shortcomings in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing systems.
From January 2021 to May 2022, bunq was found to not sufficiently investigate automated transactions on potentially fraudulent payments, as well as not placing the correct scrutiny over these transactions.
The Dutch central bank said bunq did not sufficiently follow up on transaction-monitoring alerts in the tested high-risk cases, leading to missed or delayed detection of potential illicit activity.
While not in connection to the August 2025 fine, bunq had initially been blocked by the Dutch Central Bank from using AI systems and machine learning to automate its transaction monitoring.
In October 2022, bunq took the issue to a Dutch court and won its appeal to allow the use of automated services. However, the court maintained that bunq had to strengthen its processes pertaining to the verification of sources of funds from high-risk accounts.
