Your neobank changed banks. Did anyone tell you?
Most American neobanks are not banks. They are apps sitting on top of one, a licensed sponsor bank that actually holds the deposits, issues the card and carries the regulatory obligations. We have written before about why that matters on the worst day. This post is about something quieter: that bank can change underneath you, and it does more often than anyone mentions.
Fourteen neobanks, three banks
We track 81 neobanks on the partner-bank model worldwide. For 29 of them, our records name the US bank currently sponsoring them. Almost half of those 29 sit on just three banks:
| Sponsor bank | Neobanks on it, in our records |
|---|---|
| Coastal Community Bank | 6 — One, Albert, Bluevine, Greenwood, Till, and now Dave |
| Community Federal Savings Bank | 5 — Greenlight, GoHenry (now Acorns Early in the US), Zolve, Comun, Nomad |
| Cross River Bank | 3 — Current, Karat, Meow |
Several neobanks use more than one sponsor, and the remaining 52 partner-bank neobanks either sit outside the US or have a sponsor we have not yet recorded, so treat this as a floor rather than a census. But the shape is already clear: behind a crowd of distinct-looking apps sits a short list of the same few banks.
Six moves
Concentration is half of it. The other half is that the sponsor is not fixed. Among those same 29, our records show at least six that have changed banks:
- Relay moved from Evolve to Thread Bank in 2023.
- Mercury left Evolve in 2024 for Choice and Column.
- Dave announced in March 2025 that Coastal would replace Evolve: new customers onboard there, existing accounts move over within 24 months.
- Found moved from Piermont to Lead Bank.
- Slash moved from Piermont to Column.
- Lili moved from Choice to Sunrise Banks.
From the customer's side, a move like this looks like an email, a new card in the post, perhaps new account and routing numbers, and a line in an updated agreement. The app icon does not change. Plenty of people go through one without registering that the institution legally holding their money is now a different company.
Why Evolve keeps coming up
Three of those six moves were away from the same bank. In 2024 Evolve Bank & Trust came under a Federal Reserve enforcement action, and in the same year Synapse, the middleware connecting many fintechs to Evolve, collapsed. Customer money froze across dozens of apps while the records were untangled.
Two of the neobanks in our graveyard died of that chain. Juno wound down after its funds were caught in it. Copper shut its teen bank accounts on a day's notice in May 2024 and today exists only as a rewards app. In our live data Evolve now sponsors three: Step and Branch, plus Dave until its move completes.
This post made the dataset smaller
Checking every one of those 29 sponsor relationships for this piece turned up more than stale bank names. Three neobanks we were still listing as active had closed:
- Copper, as above: banking ended in May 2024.
- Charlie, a bank for Americans over 62, closed its accounts on 22 January 2026.
- Ellevest left consumer banking in 2025 to serve only wealth-management clients.
All three are now in the graveyard with their causes, and the directory counts 382 active neobanks rather than 385. Dave, Mercury, Greenwood, Step, Till and GoHenry also had their records brought up to date. That is roughly what an open dataset is for: a piece of analysis forces a recount, and the recount is public.
What to actually check
- Who your sponsor bank is today. It is in the app's terms or footer, usually as "Banking services provided by…". Every profile here records it where we can verify it.
- Whether you have had a migration notice. If your neobank emailed about new account numbers or a new card, that was very likely a sponsor change.
- What the insurance actually covers. Pass-through coverage depends on the records being right. Keep your own statements; on the worst day, they are evidence.