German neobank Tomorrow is unique in that its focus is on climate change, containing emissions and promoting sustainable green projects even while offering banking as a service:
Tomorrow is a Germany-based neobank, mainly offering personal banking services through an iPhone or an Android app and a debit card. The neobank’s mobile banking accounts are available to residents of some 18 European counties, including Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
What is unique about Tomorrow is that it has a focus on sustainability and ethical investment practices. While customers make use of its powerful banking app, they can effortlessly contribute to projects aiming to tackle climate change, offset the user’s CO₂ emissions, and more. The bank has partnered with Solarisbank to gain the status of an efficient mobile banking operator, even while it has the status of a secure, licensed and regulated financial institution.
3 SUBSCRIPTION PLANS
Tomorrow offers 3 subscription plans for its customers to avail of its basic banking services but what stands out is that by opting for these plans, the customers are also participating in protecting rainforests with each euro spent using the debit card. None of the plans is free. The lowest plan is ‘Now’, for which a customer pays 3 euros per month. At the top end is ‘Zero’ plan, which is priced at 15 euros per month. The middle plan is ‘Change’, which charges a customer 7 euros per month. The Now subscription gives one current and one sub account for savings. There are digital banking features such as payment insights, mobile pay and instant notifications also available. The Zero subscription on the other hand is a premium bank account at a fully-licensed German bank that comes with automatic CO₂ offsetting, a stylish wooden card and unlimited free ATM withdrawals all over Europe. It also has features like unlimited free cash withdrawals, unlimited Pockets and ATM withdrawals abroad, and in foreign currencies.
What is common among the 3 subscription models is that a customer gets the ability to adopt sustainable banking practices regardless of the subscription. For example, every card payment made with the Tomorrow card under the Zero plan contributes towards rainforest protection and supports a wider range of sustainable projects worldwide. Besides, customers’ deposits are only invested in green and sustainable projects.
A customer can deposit up to 100,000 euros with Tomorrow, which is offered protection on par with traditional banks because of Tomorrow’s partnership with Solarisbank. The deposits are also protected by the National Deposit Insurance.
CONTRIBUTING INTERCHANGE FEE
Tomorrow funds sustainable projects in a novel manner. Its USP is that every time a customer pays with his debit card, Tomorrow channels a portion of the interchange fee it gets – it gets 0.2% of the total amount paid as interchange fee and spends 0.13% of the interchange fee it gets to fund projects fighting climate justice. It also uses capital from customer deposits to provide ‘micro-loans’ to people in developing countries and Green Bonds.
What is disadvantageous to a Tomorrow account holder is that there are no cash deposits possible. Also customers do not get interest on their savings accounts, though the neobank has declared this facility will soon be introduced. On the other hand, if a customer makes a deposit of in excess of 50,000 euros, Solarisbank will charge a safekeeping fee of 0.5% per annum on amounts beyond the 50,000-euro mark.
Founded in 2018 by Inas Nureldin, Jakob Berndt, and Michael Schweikart in Hamburg, Tomorrow had collected some 3.5 million euros in the first 48 hours of a crowdinvesting program recently. It aims to use these funds to expand existing activities and develop new banking features. It has also clarified that it will only invest in sustainable investment products and has been offering an investment fund oriented to the United Nations’ sustainability goals since October 2022. It has 115,000 customers.
PROFITS USED IN SUSTAINABILITY
The neobank earmarks a substantial portion of its profits towards renewable energy, protecting the rain forests and clean water initiatives. And while there is a small handful of green banks in Germany offering comparable incentives, Tomorrow is the only one whose services are solely accessible via app.
EASY ONBOARDING
Onboarding for a customer at Tomorrow is an easy digital process. They do not even have to produce a residence proof or SCHUFA. It has a partner – IDnow, which supports passport verification – to verify identification. There is a minimum age requirement of 18. Customers can easily link their accounts to Google Pay, Apple Pay or PayPal. There is an Insights feature, which allows the customer to manage spending by grouping payments into categories. A sub-account, called Pockets, can be used to store savings and instant push notifications are made to the customers with every transaction, helping them to keep an eye on spending.
One of Tomorrow’s major advantages is that it is the only bank that combines English-speaking service, sustainability and a free current account into one.
This article has been compiled based on publicly available information on the web, particularly the bank’s own website.
