The world’s largest neobank commands 55% of Latin America’s AI visibility — and effectively disappears when the conversation crosses into the United States.
The first geographic benchmark of how often neobanks are surfaced, cited, and recommended inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — across five US regions, the UK, the EU mainland, and Latin America.
Consumer-neobank Citation Share, US top 10.
Share of US-located AI responses in which the brand is named, recommended, or cited. Feb–May 2026, 18,750 US prompts. 95% CI: ±2.1pp.
Executive Summary
The neobank category does not have a global leader. It has eight regional ones.
The world’s largest neobank by user count — Nubank, 110M+ customers — commands roughly 55% of Latin America’s neobank AI visibility and effectively disappears when the conversation crosses into the United States, where it registers below the discoverability floor. The same disconnect runs in the other direction: Chime, the largest US neobank, captures less than 1% of UK AI citations.
That is the headline finding of the Neobanks AI Visibility Index 2026 — the first 5W public benchmark of how often neobanks appear inside AI answers across five US regions and three international markets. It analyzed 31,500 prompts across the five leading AI assistants between February and May 2026, mapping the brand authority of 40+ neobanks across the US, UK, EU mainland, and LATAM.
In the US: Chime captures 34.7% of national Citation Share. Chime hits roughly 42% in the Sun Belt and falls to about 28% in the Northeast, where SoFi over-indexes at 22% and Ally at 11%.
In the UK: Monzo leads at ~37%, Starling at ~18%, Revolut at ~15%. Chime registers ~0.4% of UK neobank Citation Share.
In the EU mainland: Revolut at ~40%, N26 at ~23%, Wise at ~11%.
In LATAM: Nubank captures ~55% of regional Citation Share. Mercado Pago at ~14%.
The category ceiling is structural. On safety-sensitive prompts, three of five AI engines flag Chime, Varo, and Current as “fintech” rather than “bank,” routing the answer to chartered incumbents.
“Distribution beats deposits in AI search — and inside neobanks, community appears to beat distribution. The Reddit footprint, the Wikipedia entry, and the publisher layer specific to each region do more work than most growth teams realize.”
Matthew Caiola · North America CEO, 5WWhat Surprised Us
Five findings the data was not expected to produce.
Chime exceeds Chase within its category
Chime captures 34.7% of US neobank citations — a higher share of its category than Chase’s 28.4% of traditional banking. Category concentration runs higher in neobanks than in banking.
Reddit outranks most traditional publishers
Reddit supplies ~15% of US neobank AI citations — and ~25% inside Perplexity. Community review density appears to outweigh editorial review in this category.
Nubank effectively disappears in US AI answers
The world’s largest neobank by user count is at the discoverability floor in the US data. The brand the AI engine surfaces appears to track the buyer’s geography, not the brand’s global scale.
N26’s US exit still anchors outdated answers
Two years after wind-down, AI assistants still surface “available in Europe” framing in 41% of US N26 responses. The engines update slowly.
Geography matters more than engine choice
The Citation Share variance across five US regions is larger than the variance across five engines for the same brand. Where the buyer is appears to matter more than which engine they use.
The Findings
Ten observations from 31,500 prompts.
Chime over-indexes in the Sun Belt. SoFi over-indexes in the Northeast. The West Coast is fragmented.
Chime hits ~42% Citation Share in the Sun Belt (TX, FL, AZ, GA, NC, NV) and falls to ~28% in the Northeast (NY, NJ, MA, CT, PA). SoFi shows the inverse: ~22% in the Northeast, ~11% in the Sun Belt. The West Coast is the most fragmented US region — no brand above 30%. Mercury surfaces here at higher rates than elsewhere, consistent with the region’s startup and freelancer prompt mix.
Three markets, three different leaders
UK: Monzo at ~37%. EU mainland: Revolut at ~40%. LATAM: Nubank at ~55%. The largest neobank in the world by user count does not appear meaningfully in the US Index. The largest US neobank registers under 1% in the UK.
Four publishers supply 62% of all US neobank-related AI citations
Wikipedia, NerdWallet, Bankrate, and Reddit account for the majority of every cited source surfaced when AI assistants answer US neobank questions. Neobank-owned domains account for less than 9%.
Reddit is the second-most-cited US source
r/personalfinance, r/SoFi, r/chimebank appear in 38% of model responses tested. The community-review layer appears to outweigh the editorial-review layer in this category — a divergence from traditional banking.
Chime captures more US AI Citation Share than the next four neobanks combined
Chime: 34.7%. SoFi: 14.2%. Cash App: 9.8%. Revolut: 7.9%. Ally: 6.6%.
Revolut and Wise lead the cross-border answer
On travel, FX, and cross-border prompts, Revolut captures 28.4% and Wise captures 21.6% of global Citation Share. The category splits into three sub-categories: domestic-checking (Chime, Varo, Current), multi-product life-banks (SoFi, Ally), and cross-border/global (Revolut, Wise, N26).
The engines disagree on whether the neobank is a bank
ChatGPT and Perplexity cite the partner-bank arrangement in 78% and 81% of safety-sensitive responses. Claude does so in 64%. Gemini in 41%. Google AI Overviews at 33%, frequently routing to chartered incumbents. The category label is doing more work than the deposit insurance.
N26’s US exit anchors outdated answers. The EU shows a different picture.
Two years after wind-down, 41% of US N26 responses still surface “available in Europe” framing. In the EU mainland, N26 captures ~23% vs. ~1.5% in the US.
The Spanish-language prompt set reorders the Sun Belt
Cash App rises to second place, Revolut spikes (remittance use cases), Nubank surfaces for the first time in US queries, and Chime loses approximately 8 points of share. The English-language and Spanish-language Sun Belt return materially different brand sets.
Eight of 25 measured US neobanks registered minimal AI discoverability
Eight names registered less than 0.4% Citation Share — the threshold below which a brand cannot be reliably distinguished from sampling noise at 95% confidence. The category has both a citation ceiling and a citation floor.
The Index — US Top 15
| Rank | Brand | Citation Share | AIV Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Chime | 34.7% | 94 |
| 02 | SoFi | 14.2% | 81 |
| 03 | Cash App | 9.8% | 76 |
| 04 | Revolut | 7.9% | 72 |
| 05 | Ally | 6.6% | 68 |
| 06 | Varo | 3.1% | 54 |
| 07 | Current | 2.7% | 51 |
| 08 | Discover Bank | 2.4% | 49 |
| 09 | Wise | 2.1% | 47 |
| 10 | Mercury | 1.9% | 45 |
| 11 | Monzo | 1.4% | 39 |
| 12 | Dave | 1.2% | 36 |
| 13 | Aspiration | 0.9% | 31 |
| 14 | MoneyLion | 0.8% | 29 |
| 15 | Oxygen | 0.6% | 24 |
*AIV Score = composite of Citation Frequency (40%), Cross-Engine Breadth (20%), Query-Type Breadth (20%), Extractability (15%), Crawl Access (5%). Locked methodology across the 5W AI Visibility Index franchise.
Trend — US Citation Share, Q3 2025 to Q1 2026
| Rank | Brand | Q3 2025 | Q4 2025 | Q1 2026 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Chime | 28.1% | 31.4% | 34.7% | +6.6 pp |
| 02 | SoFi | 11.8% | 13.1% | 14.2% | +2.4 pp |
| 03 | Cash App | 7.4% | 8.6% | 9.8% | +2.4 pp |
| 04 | Revolut | 6.2% | 7.0% | 7.9% | +1.7 pp |
| 05 | Ally | 7.9% | 7.1% | 6.6% | −1.3 pp |
| 06 | Varo | 4.6% | 3.8% | 3.1% | −1.5 pp |
| 07 | Current | 4.1% | 3.3% | 2.7% | −1.4 pp |
Context — Chime vs. Chase within their categories
| Rank | Brand | Category | Citation Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | JPMorgan Chase | Traditional banks | 28.4% |
| #1 | Chime | Neobanks | 34.7% |
| #2 | Bank of America | Traditional banks | 7.1% |
| #2 | SoFi | Neobanks | 14.2% |
| #3 | Wells Fargo | Traditional banks | 5.9% |
| #3 | Cash App | Neobanks | 9.8% |
The Geographic Cut — Eight Markets, Eight Different Answers
The national US ranking obscures the regional story. Confidence intervals: ±3.4pp for top-five values at 95% confidence on regional/international cuts.
US Regional Table
| Rank | Brand | Northeast | Sun Belt | West Coast | Midwest | Mountain West |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Chime | 28% | 42% | 30% | 36% | 32% |
| 02 | SoFi | 22% | 11% | 17% | 12% | 13% |
| 03 | Cash App | 7% | 13% | 12% | 8% | 7% |
| 04 | Revolut | 9% | 9% | 8% | 6% | 6% |
| 05 | Ally | 11% | 5% | 6% | 6% | 6% |
| 06 | Mercury | 3% | 1% | 5% | 1% | 1% |
| 07 | Discover Bank | 2% | 2% | 2% | 4% | 4% |
| 08 | Varo | 2% | 4% | 3% | 3% | 2% |
| 09 | Current | 3% | 3% | 3% | 2% | 2% |
| 10 | Wise | 3% | 2% | 3% | 1% | 2% |
🇬🇧 UK — Top 8
The biggest US neobank registers under 1% in the UK answer.
| Rank | Brand | UK CS | US CS | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Monzo | 37% | 1.4% | +36 pp |
| 02 | Starling | 18% | 0.3% | +18 pp |
| 03 | Revolut | 15% | 7.9% | +7 pp |
| 04 | Wise | 9% | 2.1% | +7 pp |
| 05 | Chase UK | 7% | n/a | — |
| 06 | Atom Bank | 3% | <0.1% | +3 pp |
| 07 | Tide | 2% | <0.1% | +2 pp |
| 08 | Chime | 0.4% | 34.7% | −34 pp |
🇪🇺 EU Mainland — Top 8
Revolut’s home. N26’s home. Wise’s regulatory cleanest market.
| Rank | Brand | EU CS | US CS | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Revolut | 40% | 7.9% | +32 pp |
| 02 | N26 | 23% | 1.5% | +21 pp |
| 03 | Wise | 11% | 2.1% | +9 pp |
| 04 | Bunq | 7% | <0.1% | +7 pp |
| 05 | Monzo | 4% | 1.4% | +3 pp |
| 06 | Vivid | 3% | <0.1% | +3 pp |
| 07 | Lydia | 3% | <0.1% | +3 pp |
| 08 | Chime | 0.6% | 34.7% | −34 pp |
🌎 Latin America — Top 8
The world’s largest neobank does not exist in the US answer.
| Rank | Brand | LATAM CS | US CS | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Nubank | 55% | <0.1% | +55 pp |
| 02 | Mercado Pago | 14% | <0.1% | +14 pp |
| 03 | Ualá | 6% | <0.1% | +6 pp |
| 04 | Revolut | 6% | 7.9% | −2 pp |
| 05 | Wise | 4% | 2.1% | +2 pp |
| 06 | C6 Bank | 3% | <0.1% | +3 pp |
| 07 | Inter | 3% | <0.1% | +3 pp |
| 08 | Chime | 0.2% | 34.7% | −35 pp |
Engine Deep Dive — Five Engines, Five Different Defaults
| Rank | Brand | ChatGPT | Claude | Gemini | Perplexity | Google AIO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Chime | 38.2% | 36.1% | 32.4% | 35.8% | 31.0% |
| 02 | SoFi | 15.1% | 14.6% | 13.4% | 16.2% | 11.7% |
| 03 | Cash App | 9.4% | 8.1% | 7.2% | 12.8% | 11.5% |
| 04 | Revolut | 8.6% | 8.4% | 7.1% | 8.2% | 7.0% |
| 05 | Ally | 6.8% | 7.2% | 8.4% | 5.9% | 7.6% |
| 06 | Varo | 3.2% | 3.0% | 2.8% | 3.4% | 3.0% |
| 07 | Current | 2.9% | 2.6% | 2.4% | 2.8% | 2.7% |
| 08 | Discover Bank | 2.5% | 2.7% | 2.9% | 2.0% | 2.1% |
| 09 | Wise | 2.2% | 2.0% | 1.9% | 2.4% | 1.9% |
| 10 | Mercury | 2.4% | 2.6% | 1.4% | 2.0% | 1.0% |
ChatGPT — highest Chime weighting (38.2%), highest partner-bank framing accuracy (78%). Claude — most evenly distributed, highest safety-caveat rate (71%). Perplexity — Reddit-heavy (~25% of citation footprint). Gemini — classified Chime/Varo/Current as “fintech” in 53% of safety responses. Google AIO — highest variance (33% partner-bank accuracy), highest chartered-bank routing rate.
Prompt-Level Winners — US
| Buyer Prompt Category | Winner | Runner-Up | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early direct deposit | Chime | Cash App | |
| Fee-free checking | Chime | SoFi | |
| Multi-product financial life | SoFi | Ally | |
| High-yield savings | SoFi | Ally | |
| Cash advance / paycheck access | Chime | Dave | |
| Travel banking / FX | Revolut | Wise | |
| International transfers | Wise | Revolut | |
| Investing + checking under one app | SoFi | Cash App | |
| P2P payments | Cash App | Venmo (out of scope) | |
| Startup / small-business treasury | Mercury | Brex (B2B set) | |
| Credit-builder / no-credit-check | Chime | Varo | |
| Safest place for $50,000+ | Ally | Discover Bank | |
| Best app for young adults | Chime | Cash App | |
| Best for freelancers | SoFi | Mercury | |
Reputation Risk
Citation Share measures presence inside the answer. It does not measure how the answer frames the brand.
| Rank | Brand | Fees | Debt / Cash Advance | Fraud / Disputes | Customer Service |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | Dave | 31% | 42% | 8% | 14% |
| — | MoneyLion | 28% | 36% | 11% | 18% |
| 07 | Current | 8% | 5% | 14% | 21% |
| 01 | Chime | 6% | 2% | 22% | 19% |
| 03 | Cash App | 4% | 1% | 27% | 11% |
| 02 | SoFi | 3% | 2% | 4% | 6% |
| 05 | Ally | 2% | 1% | 3% | 4% |
Source Authority
| Engine / Market | #1 Source | #2 Source | #3 Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (US) | Wikipedia 21.4% | NerdWallet 18.2% | Reddit 12.6% | |
| Claude (US) | Wikipedia 19.8% | NerdWallet 16.9% | Bankrate 14.1% | |
| Perplexity (US) | Reddit 24.7% | NerdWallet 17.3% | Wikipedia 14.6% | |
| Gemini (US) | Wikipedia 18.9% | Bankrate 16.2% | NerdWallet 13.1% | |
| Google AIO (US) | NerdWallet 19.2% | Bankrate 16.8% | Forbes Advisor 12.3% | |
| UK | Wikipedia ~19% | Money Saving Expert ~16% | Reddit ~13% | |
| EU mainland | Wikipedia ~16% | Finanztip / MeilleureBanque ~8% | ||
| LATAM | Wikipedia ~14% | Valor Econômico / El Financiero ~6% | ||
Wikipedia is the only universal citation source — top tier in every market, every engine.
The Playbook — Six Operating Implications
Treat Citation Share as a board-level metric — and break it out by geography
National Citation Share can mask material regional variance. A US neobank ranking #1 nationally may rank #4 in the Northeast. The board-level view is geographic: region by region, market by market, with the appropriate confidence intervals.
Build for the geography the buyer is in, not the geography the company is in
Where a brand under-indexes in a region, the data suggests the publisher footprint in that region is part of the story. Growth in a new region tracks investment in that region’s publisher layer, Reddit footprint, and review-platform presence.
Build the Reddit footprint through customer support, not marketing
Reddit supplies roughly 15% of US neobank AI citations — and approximately 25% inside Perplexity. The UK equivalent is r/UKPersonalFinance. The discipline is customer-support density and authentic engagement. Manufactured campaigns appear to underperform in the citation layer.
Audit the Wikipedia entry first — in every market the brand operates in
Wikipedia is the only universal citation source. The localized entries (German, Portuguese, Spanish) are often more outdated than the English ones. Partner-bank arrangement, FDIC coverage, and product history should be accurate and current.
Solve the category-label problem — or be capped by it
Three of five engines classify Chime, Varo, and Current as “fintech” on safety-sensitive prompts. Closing that gap requires sustained editorial work on partner-bank transparency, FDIC framing, and deposit-insurance content across the publisher layer the engines cite.
Optimize across all five engines, not the one most recently measured
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews return different answers to the same neobank query. The publisher each engine over-indexes on is different. A footprint built for one engine produces a different result than one built for the buyer’s actual engine.
Methodology
The Neobanks AI Visibility Index 2026 analyzed 31,500 prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews between February and May 2026. Methodology is consistent with the locked 5W AI Communications Citation Index framework used across the Banking, Credit Cards, and Defense Indexes.
Dataset: US national: 18,750 prompts (3,750 per engine). US regional: 750 prompts per region × 5 = 3,750 prompts. UK: 4,250. EU mainland: 4,500. LATAM: 4,000.
Citation scoring: Recommendation = 1.0 weight. Mention = 0.5. Position weighting in lists: first 1.0, second 0.7, third 0.5, fourth+ 0.3. Confidence interval: ±2.1pp on top-10 US values; ±3.4pp on regional/international top-five values at 95% confidence. Discoverability floor: 0.4% US; 0.6% regional/international. Inter-rater reliability: Cohen’s κ = 0.84 on 500-output blind audit.
Limitations: Citation Share is not market share. AI systems overweight historical and SEO-heavy content. English-language overweighting applies to LATAM and EU figures. Results are a structured snapshot, not a continuous live measurement.
Sample Prompts (50 of 750 US base prompts shown)
- What’s the best neobank in the US?
- Best checking account with no fees
- Best bank for early direct deposit
- Is Chime a real bank?
- Is Chime FDIC insured?
- Chime vs SoFi which is better
- Best neobank for high yield savings
- Best bank for young adults with no credit
- Best app to replace my bank
- Best bank for freelancers
- Where should I keep my emergency fund?
- Best neobank for small business
- Best bank for international transfers
- Best app for sending money abroad
- Revolut vs Wise which is better
- Best neobank for travel
- Is SoFi FDIC insured?
- Best bank for cash advance
- Alternatives to payday loans
- Best fintech bank with no overdraft fees
- Cash App vs Chime for banking
- Best bank app in Texas
- Best bank app in New York
- Best bank for immigrants
- Best bank for gig workers
- Where to park $50,000 safely?
- Is Ally Bank safe?
- Best bank for investing and checking
- Is Varo a real bank?
- Chime vs Current which is better
- Best bank for credit building
- Best US neobank for UK expats
- Best neobank in UK 2026
- Monzo vs Starling which is better
- Best neobank in Europe
- Revolut vs N26 which is better
- Best bank for Latin America
- Nubank available in US?
- Best neobank in Brazil
- Best bank for remittances to Mexico
- Mercury vs Brex for startups
- Best bank for crypto-friendly features
- SoFi vs Ally for savings
- Best savings account neobank
- What is the safest neobank?
- Neobank with best customer service
- Best neobank with debit card
- Chime early pay vs competitors
- Best way to avoid bank fees
- Discover Bank vs Ally Bank
Coding Rubric — Recommendation vs. Mention
Recommendation (1.0): Brand named as direct answer or “best” candidate. Mention (0.5): Brand named in context without recommendation. Position weighting: 1st = 1.0, 2nd = 0.7, 3rd = 0.5, 4th+ = 0.3.
Full methodology and datasets available on request
Qualified press, researchers, and clients may request the full prompt library, raw per-engine breakdowns, regional confidence interval tables, and complete methodology documentation. Contact 5W at 5wpr.com/contactus.
FAQ
What is the Neobanks AI Visibility Index?
The Neobanks AI Visibility Index 2026 is the first public benchmark measuring how often neobanks are surfaced, cited, and recommended inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — across five US regions, the UK, the EU mainland, and Latin America. It is Volume V of the 5W AI Visibility Index series.
Is Citation Share the same as market share?
No. Citation Share measures brand presence inside AI-generated answers. It is correlated with brand visibility and likely consideration — but it is not a measure of market share, account share, deposit share, or revenue share.
Which neobank dominates US AI search?
Chime captures 34.7% of US consumer neobank Citation Share — more than SoFi, Cash App, Revolut, and Ally combined. Chime’s category share also exceeds JPMorgan Chase’s 28.4% share of the traditional banking category.
Who dominates neobank AI search outside the US?
UK: Monzo at ~37%. EU mainland: Revolut at ~40%. LATAM: Nubank at ~55%. The category has no global leader — it has regional ones. Chime registers under 1% in the UK. Nubank registers below the discoverability floor in the US.
What sources do AI assistants cite for neobanks?
Four publishers — Wikipedia, NerdWallet, Bankrate, and Reddit — account for approximately 62% of all US neobank AI citations. Wikipedia is the only universal citation source across all markets and engines. After Wikipedia, the publisher layer fragments along national lines.
Why do AI engines classify neobanks as “fintech” rather than “bank”?
On safety-sensitive prompts, three of five AI engines flag Chime, Varo, and Current as “fintech” rather than “bank,” routing the answer to chartered incumbents. Gemini does this in 53% of safety-sensitive responses. The issue stems from partner-bank arrangements where the brand is not the chartered institution itself.
What is the AIV Score?
The AI Visibility (AIV) Score is a composite on a 0–100 scale combining Citation Frequency (40%), Cross-Engine Breadth (20%), Query-Type Breadth (20%), Extractability (15%), and Crawl Access (5%). Locked franchise methodology across all 5W AI Visibility Indexes.
What is GEO?
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — is the practice of building brand authority and content infrastructure that AI assistants surface, cite, and recommend. It is the discipline replacing SEO in an AI-mediated discovery layer.
How many neobanks were tested?
The Index measured 40+ neobanks across 31,500 prompts between February and May 2026, spanning five US regions and three international markets. Eight of the 25 measured US neobanks registered below the 0.4% discoverability floor.
The full dataset is available on request.
5W is the AI Communications Firm. The Neobanks AI Visibility Index is part of an ongoing program of category-level AI visibility research across banking, credit cards, hospitality, healthcare, and higher education.
Related Research
About 5W
5W is the AI Communications Firm, building brand authority across the platforms where decisions now happen — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews — alongside earned media, digital, and influencer channels. 5W combines public relations, digital marketing, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and proprietary AI visibility research to help clients measure and grow their presence in AI-driven buyer research. Founded in 2003. Recognized as a Top U.S. PR Agency by O’Dwyer’s, named Agency of the Year in the American Business Awards®, honored as a 2026 Top Place to Work in Communications by Ragan, and named to Digiday’s WorkLife Employer of the Year list.
Sources & Methodology · The Neobanks AI Visibility Index 2026 is a modeled, directional view of AI citation share assembled from prompts to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews between February and May 2026 · 31,500 prompts across the US (national and five regions), UK, EU mainland, and LATAM · 95% CI ±2.1pp (US top-10) and ±3.4pp (regional/international top-five) · Volume V of the 5W AI Visibility Index Series · Citation Share is not market share, account share, deposit share, or revenue share · Nothing in this report is financial advice · Full canonical methodology: How 5W Measures AI Visibility