Formerly known as Compte Nickel, Nickel is an alternative French banking service. Founded in 2014, the company sells debit cards and current accounts at more than 5,000 tobacconists in France. Customers manage their accounts through a mobile app. Nickel counts some 1.2 million clients in France and now plans to launch in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and Austria. The company was acquired by French bank BNP Paribas in 2017.

Nickel (Compte Nickel)

mastercard

Is the API access limited to verified TPPs only

Url/email where you can request API access

API Aggregators

API Gateway(s)

API performance and availability reports

API specs

Bank type. Find the full list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank#Types_of_banking

Bank type

Banking group

The banking group ID this bank is part of

Banking group ID

Collections

Marked true if an exemption granted from the fall back mechanism under the RTS is granted.

Applicable regulations and compliance status

Compliance

Countries

Country HQ

Id of third-party debit account bank license. For challenger banks without their own banking license.

third-party debit account bank license

Debit card partners

Description

Developer community

Developer contact email

Developer portal

Success stories and examples from developers

Partner and developer success stories

URL to the icon of the provider (recommended size 400x400)

Icon URL

Legal Entity Identifier - The LEI is a worldwide unique code that identifies a business undertaking or legal entity. More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Entity_Identifier

Legal company name

Mobile App links

Name

The number of banks linked to this banking group

Number of banks

Open Bank Project

Use the id if this shareholder part of the radar directory

Unique indentifier of the parent entity. Can be used to group banks of the same group.

Parent ID

URL to the icon of the partner (recommended size 400x400)

Source url to the press article or news source

API sandbox

Slack community

Availability Status

SWIFT Code. More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9362

Id of third-party bank license. For challenger banks without their own banking license.

Third-party bank license

A manual count of listed API products. Used as an indicator of to be added API producrs

Total API Products

TPP access interface

Provider type

The challenger banks also asked fewer questions. Let’s focus on one area: address history. Banks all ask for your address history so they can run a Credit Search. But there’s some discrepancy in how much address history the banks ask for:

Only asks for current address

Receiving your card in the post is an experience—or rather, it’s an opportunity for the bank to create an experience that you remember positively.

Welcome Letter

Understandably, you need to prove your identity when opening an account. Traditionally, this would mean walking into a branch with your passport, or sending scanned copies of your ID in the post.

Digital ID verification

Allows you to add your card to Apple Pay as soon as your account has been approved

Instant access to Apple Pay

As you’d expect, the challenger banks were considerably faster than the more traditional banks. And remember; these are working days, not calendar days.

Number of clicks to create an account

As you can see, the challenger banks not only required the fewest clicks, but needed significantly fewer than even the best scoring traditional bank.

Number of working days to have an active account 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that all the banks have IOS apps. But what may surprise you is that not all of the banks let you actually open an account through their apps.

Nickel (Compte Nickel)

Accounting Opening

Interested in more insights?