BNEXT 500K users in less than 30 months
How a Spanish fintech with no brand or budget grew faster than Revolut and N26 by building a delegated-trust system with 300+ affiliates and 50M+ visits/month.
“From 0 to 500,000 users with a CAC of €12.50 — a quarter of what N26 was paying”
Challenge
A saturated market: BBVA, CaixaBank and Santander were already improving their digital products. ING was positioned as the "no-fee bank". Revolut and N26 had international traction. Spanish banking inertia ran deep — people use 1-2 banks max and perceive that "all banks are the same". The market response was clear: "Revolut already exists, N26 already exists, ING already exists… why do I need another one?"
Solution
Instead of competing head-on, we designed the Trust Engine: a system where each piece reinforces the others. First we identified underserved niches (travelers, families with kids). Then we built a trust fortress with systematic reviews, comparison content on third-party blogs, and SEO. Finally we activated 300+ niche affiliates with an instant €10 incentive and perfect per-partner attribution. Paid media came 18 months later, once the fortress was already in place.
Results
The context: Spain, 2017
BBVA, CaixaBank and Santander had already improved their digital products. ING had a strong brand as the "no-fee bank". Revolut and N26 were arriving with traction, brand and a consolidated product.
Spanish banking inertia was a wall: people use 1-2 banks max. The perception was that all banks are the same.
Competitive map
| Player | Strength | Exploitable weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional banks (BBVA, CaixaBank, Santander) | Trust, infrastructure, salary direct deposit | Hidden fees, slow digital product, zero innovation in niches |
| ING | "No-fee bank" perception, strong brand | Did charge hidden FX fees (but nobody knew) |
| Revolut | Strong product, global brand, early adopters | No Spanish support, perception of being a foreign company |
| N26 | Design, UX, premium brand | No local closeness or Spanish-language support |
Waterholes: listening before executing
Before launching a single campaign, we went where users spoke without filters: Reddit, Forocoches, Rankia, travel blogs. Two pain points emerged:
- ATM withdrawals were expensive — annoying, but few people did it often. Low cost for us, high perceived value.
- Invisible foreign-exchange fees — when paying in foreign currency, banks charged a fee that most users had no idea existed.
The differentiating message: "Your bank is charging you and you don't know it. We aren't."
Niche + Positioning + Incentive
We didn't compete head-on. We found the gap nobody was filling.
The 3 hero niches
Travelers (main niche) — Hidden FX fees of 1.5%-3% on every international transaction. People believed ING charged nothing. Once they discovered the truth, Bnext became the obvious answer.
Families with kids — There were no cards for minors in Spain. Bnext's nameless card: parents add money, kids spend, full control in the app.
Digital users — No-fee ATMs for occasional use.
A documented system of 8+ niches
| Niche | Main problem | GTM |
|---|---|---|
| Frequent travelers | Hidden FX fees | Travel blogs, Molaviajar, GuíaLowCost |
| Backpackers | Pay anywhere with no surprises | Specialized travel blogs |
| Erasmus students | Don't want to open an account in another country | Erasmus forums, universities |
| University students | Debts among friends, cash | University ambassadors |
| Foreigners in Spain | Requirements to open a bank account | Expat communities |
| Startup employees | Different experience | Startup events, meetups |
| Parents with kids 12+ | Giving allowance with no control | Schools, social media |
| Couples | Joint account requires going in person | Social media |
The incentive that changed everything: €10 instantly
Sign-up + activation = €10 instantly. Not after a month. Instantly. With a €25 minimum top-up to activate (smart friction that filters real users).
Result: 70% conversion to card activation.
The anecdote that changed everything
A travel blogger asked something simple: "Can I offer an incentive to my readers? €10 is enough." We launched it. 200 users with activated cards in a single weekend. We didn't have a marketing problem. We had a trust problem. People needed someone they already trusted to say "this is safe".
Initial budget (March 2018)
- €52,500/month — €45,000 partnerships (€15/activation) + €7,500 Facebook retargeting
- First-jump total: €174,000 for 13,000 activations at an average CAC of €13.38
- N26 was paying €50 per customer. Bnext did it at a quarter of that.
Trust Fortress
Before generating demand, we made sure that when someone investigated us, what they found played in our favor.
| Your site (what you control) | Your reputation (what others say) |
|---|---|
| Niche landing pages | Articles in media |
| Habit-specific messaging | Reviews (Trustpilot, App Stores) |
| Incentive | Rankings and comparisons |
| App + notifications | SEO + GEO |
Systematic reviews (double trigger)
Trigger 1 — Post-support: Every ticket resolution generated a review request on App Store, Play Store or Trustpilot.
Trigger 2 — Post-transaction: After completing X transactions, automatic invite to leave a review.
Result: 4.4 stars on App Store, Play Store and Trustpilot.
Delegated trust: the real engine
Comparison content lived on third-party blogs and websites, not on ours. When people read on an independent travel blog that "ING charges you a hidden 1.5% on FX and Bnext charges you nothing", the reaction was immediate: "This must be true."
Partner economics
- €5 to the partner per activated user
- €10 to the user as Bnext's incentive
- Total controlled CAC: €15 per active customer
Awareness — Creators + Paid
Counterintuitive decision
While every bank went to financial media, we went to travel and parenting bloggers. Because that's where our audience was.
A network of 300+ affiliates with 50M+ visits/month. Each partner with a custom landing page and a unique code for perfect attribution.
Burst vs Slow Burn
| Burst (Creators) | Slow Burn (Media/SEO) | |
|---|---|---|
| How they work | Video/post, peak 48-72h, drop | Evergreen article, steady traffic for months/years |
| What they need | New campaigns, exclusive promos | Updated content, fresh screenshots |
| Key metric | Activations per campaign | Sustained monthly activations |
The record campaign: April 2019 (+125% acquisition)
Simultaneous multi-channel orchestration — from 16,000 to 39,520 sign-ups in a single month:
- María Pombo: +1,500 customers. Reach: 1.9M people. Value: €70,000
- Affiliates (Chollometro, Forocoches, Molaviajar): +5,000 customers
- Email Marketing: campaign to 150,000+ people
- Paid Media: budget increased to amplify
Paid on top of a trust foundation
Paid started in mid-2019, after 18 months of building trust. It worked because: user sees ad → investigates → finds positive reviews and comparisons → converts. Without the fortress, paid is burnt money.
Flywheel — Measure, Optimize, Scale
Time evolution
2018: 0 to 100K — Almost exclusively partners + third-party content.
2019: 100K to 300K — Three engines in parallel:
- Referral (€10+€10): K-Factor where every 2 users brought 1 new one
- Organic (layering): All accumulated content compounding
- Paid: On top of a solid trust foundation
COVID resilience (2020)
MAUs dropped 33.2% (175K → 120K) but the Trust Engine base held:
- BChallenge: 10% reactivation of churned users (4,000 of 40,000)
- Premium Launch: 1,205 subscriptions in 7 days
- Visible recovery in May: +7% toward 130K MAUs
The lesson
Bnext didn't win by competing head-on against Revolut, N26 or the banks. It won by finding niches nobody was serving, positioning itself with an incentive impossible to ignore, and letting third parties build the trust.
We didn't build campaigns. We built a system where every piece reinforced the others: the niche defined the message, the message attracted the right partner, the partner generated trust, trust activated the user, the user left reviews and referred others.
That's the Trust Engine.
Consolidated metrics
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total users | 0 → 500,000 in less than 30 months |
| Blended CAC | €12.50–€13.30 |
| TAC (Total Acquisition Cost) | €21.31 |
| 6-month retention | 55% |
| Card activation conversion | 70% |
| K-Factor | Every 2 users → 1 new |
| Speed to 300K | Bnext 17 months vs Revolut 24 vs N26 58 |
| Revenue YoY | +400% (Oct 2018 → Oct 2019) |
| Ratings | 4.4 on App Store, Play Store and Trustpilot |
| Affiliate network | 300+ sites, 50M+ visits/month |
| Acquisition peak | +125% (April 2019, María Pombo + multichannel) |
| Valuation | ~€86M post-money (Crowdcube, Oct 2019) |
“Traditional marketing simply doesn't work the same way in fintech. While an e-commerce business validates its promise by shipping a package, we had to earn people's trust with their money. The Trust Engine wasn't just a marketing strategy — it was the only real way to grow.
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