Vivid Money

Positioning update — the March 2025 pivot

On 13 March 2025, Vivid Money announced it was discontinuing the development of its retail product and concentrating entirely on SMEs and freelancers. This was a deliberate strategic decision, not a regulatory or solvency event: CEO Alexander Emeshev cited the inability to profitably compete against Revolut and N26 in mass-market retail, where both competitors have multi-hundred-million-dollar marketing budgets and network effects Vivid could not match at its scale.

That pivot is the single most important thing to understand before reading the rest of this review. The product we described in our 2024 review — a consumer-first super-app — no longer exists as a priority for the company. Existing retail accounts remain open and functional, but in practice they are in maintenance mode: no new retail features are being built, and the company's engineering, marketing, and support investment is flowing to Vivid Business.

Because our site now publishes under a named byline, continuing to write about Vivid as a retail primary-account option would be factually wrong — and would contradict our own news archive, which documented this pivot on the day it happened.

The data behind our deposit-protection tracker, scorecards, and comparison rankings has been re-weighted accordingly. Vivid is now ranked on its SME proposition; its retail score is preserved for accuracy but de-prioritised in best-for-consumer comparisons.

What Vivid Money actually is in 2026

Vivid is a Berlin-headquartered fintech backed by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, operating under a constellation of Lithuanian and EU-level authorisations:

• An electronic money institution (EMI) authorisation, issued by the Bank of Lithuania — the basis for the euro wallet, multi-IBAN Pockets, card issuance, and SEPA payments.
• A MiFID II investment-firm licence (Vivid Capital) — the basis for the fractional-stock and ETF brokerage.
• A MiCAR CASP licence granted in May 2025 — the basis for in-app trading of 300+ crypto assets under the harmonised EU regime.

Critically: Vivid is not a credit institution. It cannot take deposits in the legal sense, and its customer euro balances are not covered by the Lithuanian Deposit Guarantee Scheme. The protection of those balances runs through the EMI safeguarding framework (see "Safety and regulation" below).

Since the March 2025 pivot, the product surface for SMEs has expanded into France, Spain, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands — beyond the original German SME base — and the company has described itself as "the fastest-growing SME finance platform in Germany".

Vivid for SMEs and freelancers — what you actually get

For a small business or freelancer, Vivid Business is a credible European alternative to Qonto, Finom, and the business tiers of Wise or Revolut. The core proposition:

• Multi-IBAN Pockets (up to 15) — each can carry a German, Spanish, Italian, or other supported country IBAN. For a business invoicing across borders, this reduces the friction of customers who reject "foreign" IBANs (see our IBAN glossary entry).
• Card spend with cashback — up to 25% at partner brands, 1% baseline on non-partner spend within published monthly caps.
• Fractional investing — 3,000+ stocks and ETFs from €1 per order, €1 flat trade fee. Executed through Vivid Capital under MiFID II.
• Crypto in-app — 300+ assets under the MiCAR CASP licence.
• Standard-tier pricing — €0/month if ≥1 card payment per month or €1,000 balance; otherwise €3.90 maintenance. Prime tier at €9.90/month raises cashback caps and adds premium features.

Compared to Qonto (which we still rate higher for French / German SME core banking with proper accounting integrations), Vivid Business is broader in feature surface but thinner on accounting-ecosystem depth. It is the better choice if you want investments + crypto inside the same account you spend from; it is the weaker choice if you need deep integration with German DATEV or French expert-comptable workflows.

What happens to existing retail users

Vivid has not forced retail customers to close their accounts. The consumer app continues to function, cards remain active, pockets continue to work, direct debits process as before, and the brokerage and crypto trading surfaces remain available to existing retail users. That status is not expected to change in the near term.

What will not happen is new feature development for retail. Bug fixes, security patches, and regulatory updates will continue; net-new consumer functionality will not. Over a multi-year horizon that gap widens against competitors that are investing. For a reader evaluating Vivid as a primary personal account in 2026, that trajectory is the reason to choose a credit-institution competitor — Revolut, N26, or bunq — instead.

Safety and regulation — the layered protection story

This is where Vivid is genuinely more complex than any other bank in our index, and the complexity is not hypothetical: if you hold a mixed balance (cash + stocks + crypto), three different protection regimes apply to three different parts of your balance.

1. Cash balances — held in segregated accounts at custody credit institutions under the EMI safeguarding framework (Article 10, 2009/110/EC). Not DGS-insured. If the safeguarding account is intact, cash is returned; if it is impaired, there is no statutory €100,000 payout. See our EMI vs. banking licence glossary entry for why this is a material distinction.

2. Stocks and ETFs — held in Vivid Capital custody under MiFID II client-asset segregation rules. Covered by the Lithuanian investor-compensation scheme up to €22,000 per customer in the specific event of fraud at the custodian level; not general market-loss insurance.

3. Crypto assets — held under MiCAR CASP rules, which require segregation of client crypto assets from the CASP's own assets and mandate disclosures about custody arrangements. There is no deposit-insurance equivalent for crypto anywhere in the EU regime. A total loss of the custody stack is possible and uninsured.

For a SME using Vivid primarily as a euro current account with occasional stock purchases, the practical exposure is dominated by the EMI safeguarding regime — well-understood, generally reliable, but not the same product as a DGS-insured deposit. Our deposit-protection tracker classifies Vivid accordingly.

Hands-on UX

The app is feature-dense — pockets, cashback rules, stock orders, crypto trades all in one surface. It is closer to Revolut's maximalist approach than N26's minimalist one. Customer support is chat-only, with published SLAs rather than 24/7 staffing. Onboarding for a SME customer takes a working day in our testing (company registration documents, beneficial-owner disclosures, VAT number verification).

Who Vivid Money is for in 2026

Choose Vivid Business if: you are a freelancer or small business operating across German / French / Spanish / Luxembourgish / Dutch markets, you value multi-IBAN flexibility, and you want investments and crypto inside the same account surface you spend from.

Look elsewhere if:

• You are a consumer opening a primary personal account — choose Revolut, N26, or bunq, all credit-institution-tier with full DGS cover.
• You want a focused SME product with deep accounting-suite integration — Qonto is cheaper and simpler for that profile.
• You primarily want cheap FX on international transfers — Wise is purpose-built for that use case.

The re-audited verdict below reflects this repositioning explicitly.

Premium plans