Salt Bank celebrates one year since its launch with a new breakthrough: over 500,000 customers have chosen Romania’s first 100% Romanian neobank so far – twice in volume versus the initial estimates. Salt Bank is already among the top 10 banks in Romania and continues to grow at an accelerated pace, launching innovative digital products – some of them in premiere on the local market.
In April 2024, Salt Bank generated a true Big Bang in the banking industry: in the first 10 days after launch, over 100,000 Romanians became customers and, at the same time, founders of the bank. Each founder recommended the bank further 2.4 times, on average.
In just one year, over 400 releases have been launched in the application and the busiest day was when over 14,000 Romanians joined Salt Bank.
Salt Bank offered the equivalent of more than 7,800 years’ worth of cashback to customers who brought their friends into the app through its “Cashback Friend Meets Cashback Friend” (“Prietenul la cashback se cunoaste”), referral campaign.
Although it is a 100% digital bank, when they have a problem, customers can call Salt Bank’s Care Center, where they benefit from interaction only with real people. If we were to calculate the length of chats from the first year – from launch to present – customers have generated conversations that total 60 kilometers.
Thus, Salt Bank has become the second bank in Romania in terms of customer satisfaction, according to a nationwide study conducted on banking customers by Mercury Research.
For all these performances, Salt Bank has received 29 national awards, the most important being for “Innovator of the Year” at the Business Review Awards Gala, “Best Banking Offer” and “Best Current Account”. Internationally, Salt Bank has been awarded four times, including the distinction “Best Digital Bank” at the FinTech Breakthrough Awards 2025 and “Best Use of Tech in Retail Banking” at the Banking Tech Awards 2024.
Also, since digital means sustainable, in its first year Salt Bank consumed only 300 paper reams, the equivalent of about 20 trees, for which the digital bank will run a 5,000-tree afforestation campaign.
“The first year was about developing a digital bank to cover the services customers need in an increasingly technology-depending world. Now, we’re entering the Salt Bank 2.0 phase – where we want to do more than just improve banking experience. We’re looking at completely new solutions that anticipate what’s next and set new trends in the banking industry. If the launch of Salt Bank was a Big Bang in the industry, what’s coming is a Bigger Bang – with innovative solutions that make banking better, more beautiful, better and safer,” said Gabriela Nistor, CEO of Salt Bank.
What’s Next: Main Salt Bank News at its 1 Year Anniversary
“The Bigger Bang in Banking” brings products and services developed on the three pillars that form the foundation of Salt Bank: beautiful, good, and safe.
Thus, Salt Bank introduces two new advanced features, designed to significantly increase the security level of digital accounts and transactions. At the same time, Salt Bank customers will soon have access to a lending service for individuals, and in the mobility area, Salt Bank brings an exclusive benefit: 100,000 drivers among its customers will benefit from a free Road Assistance service. Also, mandatory car insurance policies (RCA) will be manageable directly from the mobile application, eliminating bureaucracy and wasted time.
Salt Bank 2.0 comes with a business account for freelancers and small companies that have a single shareholder. This new product can be accessed from the same application, already familiar to them, where they also have their personal account, just a swipe away.
New Features for Money Security
The attempt to fraudulently obtain banking data is the most common type of online fraud in Romania. Over 57% of Romanians indicated this method as the most frequent, while 9 out of 10 Romanians believe that financial and commercial institutions should adopt additional measures to protect users in the digital environment, according to a study by SAS – a global leader in A.I. and data analysis.
In this context, Salt Bank has integrated and developed products and services based on the “safe” pillar – one of the three fundamental pillars of the bank. Today, the bank is taking a further step in this direction by launching two new functionalities designed to support the financial protection of vulnerable people.
Thus, the new “Help Mama” feature will allow customers to help their parents or other senior relatives safely manage their money. Salt Bank customers thus become “protectors” for vulnerable, elderly people, and will receive notifications whenever the “protected” person intends to make a larger payment (above a chosen threshold) or tries to view their card data. The protector can approve or reject these actions directly from the notification on their mobile phone, quickly and simply. The function offers support and safety to loved ones, without invading the privacy of close ones, as it does not have access to data regarding the purpose of the transaction.
In parallel, “Call Monitor” is another security feature built into the Salt Bank app, which helps users to identify genuine calls from the bank, as many frauds are taking place via phone calls where criminals pose as bank representatives and try to obtain personal data or access to accounts. For example, during a call with a bank representative, the app displays a banner confirming to customers that they are indeed speaking to a Salt Bank representative, even displaying the name of the representative. If the call is not verified, the user is warned in the Salt app not to provide sensitive data or authorize transactions.
Lending, Road Assistance and Car Insurance through Salt Bank
2025 will bring Salt Bank customers, among other things, a personal loan service with installments of up to 5 years and fixed interest from 6.25%.
Salt Bank will also offer a free Road Assistance service for the first 100,000 enrolled customers and a tool to manage their RCA policies, through which customers will be notified every time they need to renew their insurance.
Salt Business, for Freelancers and Small Entrepreneurs
Salt Bank is also launching Salt Business, an account dedicated to freelancers, independent professionals and small companies with one shareholder, which can be activated 100% digitally, directly from the app already used for the personal account. Users can manage all financial activities – from issuing and receiving invoices (including via SPV) to payments, receipts and foreign exchange – in one place. The product includes essential banking services, multi-currency card and access to useful functionalities such as utility payments and organizing money through Spaces. Salt Business is ideal, for example, for freelance IT professionals, ride-sharing drivers, influencers or other people working in the creative industries.
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