Vivid Money

Born out of frustration with a system where a customer only really ever provides value for banks, getting nothing but fees and commissions in return, Vivid offers users a refreshing and high-tech digital banking experience. Built on Solarisbank's banking platform, Vivid is an up-and-coming financial "one-stop-shop" app: payments and transfers, an interest on your current account, 3000+ ETFs & stocks from companies all over the world along with 50+ cryptocurrencies on top of and an ability to store funds in over 40 currencies. Vivid claims it's there to make managing your finances easy and give you confidence that your funds are constantly at work while your portfolio grows. Is that claim realistic or is the reality different? Read our Vivid bank review and find out if it's the right choice for you in this article.

Warning! Investment is never without risk. You may lose your investment due to market risks involved.

The selling point is quite straightforward - Vivid obviously targets an audience that is curious about investing their savings and maybe looks to dip into the crypto world in a safe environment. There is an additional angle of "help users grow their money" - a few features revolve around "no action required" small-scale incremental investment, like rounding up your everyday purchases to the next Euro and investing the spare change with every payment. Vivid claim customer research identified these frequent tiny injections in your savings account are the ones people find the most convenient and help form a good habit of always contributing to your financial health.

Limited Time Offer! All new users signing up via the links on FintechCompass get 30 days of Vivid Prime trial absolutely for free with "no strings attached". A great opportunity to try it out and see if that's the right product for you, so make sure to download the app while the trial is still available.

Vivid offers an interesting product that has a potential to cover most of your day-to-day banking needs. Reviewing Vivid is not an easy task simply because, as with any financial products or services, the sheer diversity and variety of users' needs and the range of use cases make it exceptionally tough to offer general advice. However, there are still objective advantages and disadvantages to using Vivid, so we will focus on these below.

Fractional investment

If you find yourself thinking about buying Tesla stock, you might be put off by the fact that a single share trades at around $1000, which can be a quite heavy bill to pick up for a retail investor. With Vivid, however, this is a limitation of the past - you can buy any quantity of any stock, starting as low as €0,01. It's good to know that the same mechanism also applies for crypto assets.

Multiple IBANs

Having up to 15 separate "Pockets" within your Vivid account, each with a unique German IBAN is absolutely amazing for keeping track of your personal finances, as well as budgeting or managing your investment portfolio. You can also hold your funds in multiple currencies, each stored in its own individual "pocket".

High ATM withdrawal fees

A limit of €1000 on Vivid Prime and €200 on Standard plan might not be enough for you if you're traveling to a cash-heavy country like Germany or France, and you'd have to live with a fee of 3% (no less than €1 per transaction) for each withdrawal. This, however, might be mitigated with a bit of advance planning.

Cashback Options

While the flat minimum rate of 0,1% cashback on all purchases might not sound too impressive, it's important to note that the cashback is also available to users on a plan with no monthly fee. For Vivid Prime users, however, cashback gets better: 3% on restaurants, cafes and bars outside of EU, up to 10% on select online services (think Spotify, Netflix and Tinder) and 1% on any purchase abroad.

Only German IBANs available

It's not a significant downside, but users signing up for Vivid from outside Germany automatically get a German bank account number as well. For some specific use cases, offering an option similar to bunq's Local IBANs, where the user has an option to pick their country's account origin would definitely be great!

Conclusion: Is Vivid worth it? Vivid or DEGIRO or Bitpanda?

Vivid definitely has a strong proposition. The fees are somewhat high, but if your investment volumes are not in the tens of thousands, the added convenience, cashback options and a variety of mechanisms in place to guarantee the security of both your deposits as well as transactions more than makes up for the costs involved. Vivid is a great choice for anyone looking to kick off their crypto investment journey, just like it is a solid contender for a banking option if you're looking to pick up a habit of keeping track of your expenses and thinking about growing your wealth. Besides, a free trial (with an absolutely free metal card in a stylish purple color!) gives you ample time to check Vivid out yourself and decide if it's worth it that way.