@NEU-Turquoise-Zebra#67735 No there is a requirement for them to make investments, in which case bonds of stable countries are actually rather secure. I'm not sure about not investing customer money, that probably depends on the way you look at it; bottom line is Premium users always contributed to investments. Whether that was through their monthly payment or through their account balance makes no difference to me to be honest, but maybe others could use it as an argument to sleep better at night. :P

Hi there,

First off- thanks for sharing your feedback on Together. This always helps us to see what is important to our users when making changes and improvements in the the app.

We want to give you the freedom to choose what happens with your money and will be sure to look into your suggestion. If you we have updated news on this in the future, we will let you know directly through this topic. For now we'll let other bunqers vote and share their opinion on making this an additional option.

Thanks again for sharing your voice with us and please continue to let us know what features and adaptations you'd like to see in the app (as we truly take these into account).

Cheers,

-Elise

@Elise#67986 Your reply doesn't actually say why bunq took the freedom we had before away. Why did bunq decide to do this?

@JeroenE#67991 What freedom exactly did bunq take away from you? You now have options for the investment and before you didn’t have those options

@NEU-Turquoise-Zebra#67724

First of all, bunq is required by law to invest some money in government bonds.

Second: all legal brokers are required to keep the shares / bonds / etc they have on behalf of customers on separate accounts that are not affected in case they go bankrupt.

I for one think that it is great that you now offer an interest rate. I didn't choose bunq because you didn't invest our money. I choose bunq because of your superior mobile banking app and your innovation and features in general. I didn't agree with everything you did in the past year, but one of the things that have been annoying me since the beginning was the 0 % interest rate and the argument that you didn't invest our money. I like where this is heading now.

@Roeshimi#67997 Before it was only ECB, now its ECB and government bonds.

@Arthur#68005 Can you point me to this law?

@JohnDo#68009 So you're saying bunq was lying to us before when they said they only used the ECB?!?!

@JeroenE#68012 Well, I use not that strong words.... but bunq 🌈 did gave mixed signals. The slogan always was "we don't invest in nasty things " ;) Still true.

An example :

@NEU-Turquoise-Zebra#68020 Well, see the second point that Ali made in that comment.

I don't play with words... it is genuinely how some people interper @Ali his words.

So, sure I hope I'm wrong.... and then I will be the first to say sorry

@JohnDo#68016 That they are buying stuff with their own money is their right. It also kinda proofs that they weren't required by law to invest in government bonds otherwise they would have had to do this from the beginning

What I'm more upset about is what they are doing with my money. See below where they say customers money is only stored at the ECB:

https://together.bunq.com/d/5030-behind-the-scenes-why-we-introduced-freedom-of-choice

Their slogan "we don't invest in nasty things" is not true when they start doing things like personal loans, mortgages or government bonds. If only because they can't control what a person or government will actually do with that money. Is buying a diesel car a "nasty thing"? Is buying a gun a nasty thing? Is building a house in the woods a nasty thing? Is building a coal power plant a nasty thing? Everybody might answer differently and buqn can't guarantee that none of this will happen with the money they invested.

@JeroenE#68027 Sorry, I didn't mean to start a whole word discussion.

I hope I miss understood and nothing is going on here.

@NEU-Turquoise-Zebra#67736 No business above 100.000 would have their money at bunq. You have to pay a penalty fee (0,24 cents a day) for every 1.000 euros above 100K. Bunq has a lot of benefits but above 100K every business would have their money at another bank..

@JohnDo#68034 No problem, we just have to wait until bunq will actually reply instead of hiding behind the "we really value your comments" replies which are just boring Public Relations boiler plate messages that don't mean anything. Let's hope they will start becoming more transparant as they always claim to be.

@NEU-Turquoise-Zebra#68042 Then maybe I just don’t understand why businesses would have their money at bunq over a 100K. Besides your argument it would be more “safe”..

@NEU-Turquoise-Zebra#67729 I think you need to study basics of investment banking before saying "bonds may be lost if the brokerage company defaults". the answer might be on the first page of any book about custody activity. Now you sound very very very amateur.

Do we even know if Bunq buys bonds via a broker? Institutional buys of bonds like Bunq dont often use Ominbus accounts of a broker to hold bonds. They should hold title directly like every other bank does via settlement houses like Euroclear Bank etc. Secondly if Bunq buys AAA rated German and Netherlands bonds they are as good as holding euro cash with potential of a slight yield on longer maturities above ECB -0.40% yield. There is no immediate danger of these quality of bonds failing any time soon :-) I think a lack of understanding of how banks work and assumptions on how banks actually hold bonds is to blame for this thread. Would like clarity however.

@Meks#68648 As long as we don't know they could be buying bonds of Greece, Turkey, Kazakhstan or Russia too. I'm guessing their ratings are lower for a reason.