What Memo Bank is, in 2026
Memo Bank is a French mid-market SME bank founded 2017 and operating from Paris under a full ACPR credit-institution licence. The structural focus is materially different from Qonto: Memo Bank does not serve freelancers or sole traders. The target audience is French SMEs with €1M-100M annual revenue — the mid-market tier that is structurally underserved by both Qonto (freelancer-and-SME-led with shallower mid-market features) and chartered legacy banks (BNP Paribas Business, Société Générale Business, Crédit Mutuel Business which serve a much broader customer base with less SME-tech focus).
Product surface: SME current account with French local IBAN; SME treasury deposit product (DGS-protected up to €100K per depositor); Visa business cards (virtual + physical); SEPA + SWIFT cross-border payments; API-first reporting and treasury workflow surface; native integrations with Cegid, Sage, Pennylane, Xero, and QuickBooks Online. Approximately ~$75M of equity funding across rounds.
Full ACPR credit-institution licence — chartered bank, DGS-protected. The structural distinction versus Tide / Finom / Wise Business / Revolut Business (all EMI-licensed without DGS cover).
At a glance
Who Memo Bank is for: mid-market French SMEs with €1M-100M revenue. Common segments: mid-market SaaS / fintech / professional-services firms; growth-stage scale-ups post-Series-B; French subsidiaries of international holding companies needing FR-domiciled treasury banking with DGS protection.
Who to avoid Memo Bank for: freelancers, sole traders, very small SMEs (Qonto Solo or Finom Solo are structurally cheaper and better-fit); businesses outside France (Memo Bank is FR-only as of 2026, no EU passporting beyond FR); operators that want native multi-currency operating accounts (EUR-primary only); German SMEs running DATEV (Qonto or Finom cover that integration); UK SMBs (Tide / Starling Business / Anna).
Safety in one sentence: Memo Bank holds a full French credit-institution licence supervised by ACPR and the ECB SSM; customer deposits carry DGS protection via FGDR up to €100,000 per depositor per institution — structurally a chartered bank, not an EMI.
Bank structure & DGS protection
Memo Bank operates as a chartered French établissement de crédit (credit institution) — ECB credit-institution licence + ACPR supervision (Memo Bank SA, ) — under ACPR supervision plus ECB SSM oversight for the larger French credit-institution tier. The structural distinction from Qonto: both hold ACPR credit-institution licences with DGS cover, so on the licence-class axis they are structurally equivalent. The differentiation is product focus (Memo Bank is mid-market-only; Qonto serves the broader freelancer-to-SME range).
Customer deposits at Memo Bank are protected by the Fonds de Garantie des Dépôts et de Résolution (FGDR), the French Deposit Guarantee Scheme, up to €100,000 per depositor per institution under EU Directive 2014/49/EU. The DGS payout window in a resolution scenario is the EU-standard 7-10 working days. For SME operating-cash balances above the €100K ceiling, the practical pattern is to structure across multiple ACPR-licensed counterparties or to route into treasury MMF products at the brokerage level (SIPC-style protection rather than DGS deposit insurance).
The contrast with EMI-licensed competitors (Tide, Finom, Wise Business, Revolut Business in most operating jurisdictions) matters because they are structurally different. EMI safeguarding holds customer funds in segregated accounts at credit institutions but does NOT carry DGS cover or a statutory payout window. For mid-market SMEs with operating-cash balances comfortably above €100K, the licence-class difference is the deciding structural factor — and Memo Bank is one of the few French SME-focused options that solves it without the legacy-bank UX trade-off.
The fee schedule
Memo Bank prices two products at the same entry point — €449 (Memo Bank SA, ) for Payments Core (no commitment) and €449 (Memo Bank SA, ) for Payments Scale (annual commitment + volume tiering). The differentiation is contract shape and headroom, not entry price.
| Item | Payments Core (€449/mo) | Payments Scale (€449/mo+) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee (excl. VAT) | €449 — no commitment | €449+ — annual commitment, volume tiering |
| French local IBAN | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visa business cards (virtual + physical) | Included | Higher limits |
| SEPA transfers (in/out) | Free, included | Free, included |
| SWIFT international wires | Per-transaction fees | Negotiated rates at volume |
| FX margin on non-EUR | ~0.5% | Negotiated at volume |
| SME treasury deposit product | ✓ (DGS up to €100K) | ✓ + multi-counterparty orchestration |
| API + developer access | ✓ (read + write) | ✓ + custom workflows |
| ERP integrations (Cegid / Sage / Pennylane / Xero / QBO) | ✓ | ✓ + custom middleware |
| Multi-user roles | ✓ | ✓ + advanced permissions |
| Dedicated CSM | — | ✓ |
Both tiers entering at €449/mo excl. VAT is structurally appropriate for mid-market SMEs — at €5M+ revenue the subscription cost is rounding error against the API + treasury + DGS-cover value. For very small SMEs and freelancers the structural recommendation is Qonto Solo (€0) or Finom Solo (€0). Payments Scale layers an annual commitment with volume-tiered SWIFT / FX / treasury orchestration on top of the same €449 entry — typically the right fit for larger mid-market SMEs needing bespoke ERP middleware (custom Cegid / Sage / Pennylane workflows), dedicated CSM, and multi-counterparty treasury management above the DGS ceiling.
Hands-on notes
Onboarding for a French SAS / SARL / SA clears in 3-7 business days for the typical mid-market customer. Required documents: SIRET / SIREN + Kbis extract (recent, within 3 months) + Statuts (articles of association) + identity verification for each shareholder with 25%+ ownership and each authorised signatory. Compared to legacy French banks (BNP Paribas Business, Société Générale Business) the onboarding is materially faster — BNP and SocGen mid-market SME onboarding can take 4-8 weeks; Memo Bank typically clears within one week.
The product UX is API-first and structurally distinct from both Qonto (consumer-grade-app UX scaled to SMB) and legacy banks (legacy-banking-portal UX). The Memo Bank dashboard prioritises treasury workflows, cash-position reporting across multi-account structures, and API-driven integration into the customer\'s finance stack. The Pennylane integration specifically is one of the structural strengths — Pennylane is a fast-growing FR SME accounting + invoicing platform that has gained material share at the mid-market tier through 2023-2026, and the bidirectional sync with Memo Bank is genuinely tight.
Friction points: FR-only operating account (EUR-primary, no multi-currency native); no free tier (€449/mo entry on either product; €0-tier-competitors are Qonto Solo or Finom Solo); no DATEV integration (rules out German mid-market SMEs running Steuerberater-mediated bookkeeping); no UK presence (Tide / Anna / Starling Business for UK); customer base materially smaller than Qonto (order of magnitude difference); no mobile-first card-tap-payment UX equivalent to Revolut Business at the consumer tier.
Plan & tier comparison
Memo Bank ships two products — Payments Core and Payments Scale — both entering at €449/mo excl. VAT. Payments Core is no-commitment month-to-month; Payments Scale layers an annual commitment with volume-tiered SWIFT / FX / treasury orchestration on top of the same €449 entry. The Scale pivot typically tracks larger mid-market revenue (€20M+), multi-entity structures, custom ERP middleware needs, and dedicated CSM relationships.
| Feature | Payments Core (€449/mo) | Payments Scale (€449/mo+) |
|---|---|---|
| FR local IBAN + Visa business card | ✓ | ✓ + higher limits |
| SEPA + SWIFT cross-border | ✓ | ✓ + negotiated rates at volume |
| SME treasury deposit (DGS €100K) | ✓ | ✓ + multi-counterparty orchestration |
| API access (read + write) | ✓ | ✓ + custom workflows |
| ERP integration depth | Cegid / Sage / Pennylane / Xero / QBO | + custom middleware |
| Multi-user roles | Standard | Advanced permissions |
| Contract shape | No commitment | Annual commitment + volume tiering |
| Dedicated CSM | — | ✓ |
Caveats
FR-only. No EU passporting outside France. International SMEs need French-domiciled subsidiaries to onboard.
Paid tiers from €449/mo excl. VAT. Both Payments Core and Payments Scale enter at the same €449 floor; no free or sub-€100/mo entry tier. Qonto Solo (€0) or Finom Solo (€0) cover the freelancer / sole-trader tier — Memo Bank explicitly does not serve that segment.
Mid-market focus narrows the audience. Best fit for €1M-100M revenue companies. Below €1M the structural fit shifts to Qonto / Finom; above €100M to BNP / SocGen Corporate or international cash-management mandates.
No native multi-currency. EUR-primary operating account. For mid-market SMEs with material non-EUR revenue, stack Wise Business or Airwallex for the FX layer.
Smaller customer base than Qonto. By an order of magnitude. The structural trade-off is product depth at the mid-market tier vs Qonto\'s broader SMB scale and brand recognition.
No DATEV integration. Rules out German mid-market SMEs running Steuerberater-mediated bookkeeping; Qonto or Finom is the structural alternative for that audience.
Memo Bank vs. Qonto vs. legacy banks
Memo Bank vs. Qonto. Both hold ACPR credit-institution licences with DGS protection — structurally equivalent on the licence-class axis. The differentiation is product focus: Qonto is freelancer-and-SME-led with strong sole-trader tiers and a €0 Solo tier; Memo Bank is mid-market-only (€1M-100M revenue target) with Payments Core and Payments Scale both entering at €449/mo excl. VAT. For a freelancer or small SME, Qonto. For a mid-market SME with structured treasury and API-first reporting needs that Qonto\'s SMB-focused UX doesn\'t cover as deeply, Memo Bank.
Memo Bank vs. legacy French banks. BNP Paribas Business, Société Générale Business, and Crédit Mutuel Business serve a vastly broader customer base across personal + business banking with multi-decade licences and deep treasury / lending / FX surface. The structural differentiation for Memo Bank is the SME-tech focus — API-first product surface, fast onboarding (1 week vs 4-8 weeks at legacy), and tight Pennylane / Cegid / Sage integration. For mid-market SMEs that need structured corporate-banking relationships with custom credit facilities and dedicated relationship-managers, the legacy banks still dominate. For mid-market SMEs that want self-serve SME-tech UX with DGS protection, Memo Bank is the structural fit.
FAQ
- Is Memo Bank a real bank?
- Yes. Full French ACPR credit-institution licence with DGS cover up to €100K per depositor. Structurally a chartered bank, not an EMI.
- Are Memo Bank deposits DGS-protected?
- Yes. FGDR (French DGS) provides cover up to €100K per depositor per institution. EU-standard 7-10 working-day payout window in a resolution scenario.
- How is Memo Bank different from Qonto?
- Both hold ACPR licences with DGS protection. Memo Bank is mid-market-only (€1M-100M revenue) with Payments Core and Payments Scale both from €449/mo excl. VAT. Qonto serves freelancers and SMEs with a €0 Solo tier.
- Which French SME segment is the structural fit?
- Mid-market SMEs with €1M-100M revenue. Common segments: mid-market SaaS / fintech / professional-services, post-Series-B scale-ups, French subsidiaries of international holdings.
- Does Memo Bank integrate with DATEV?
- No. FR-focused integrations: Cegid, Sage, Pennylane, Xero, QuickBooks. For German DATEV workflows, Qonto or Finom.
- What is the SME treasury product?
- SME-tier deposit with DGS cover up to €100K, plus multi-counterparty allocation above the ceiling. API surface supports automated treasury workflows for mid-market customers.
Who Memo Bank is for
Use Memo Bank if you run a French SME with €1M-100M annual revenue — particularly mid-market SaaS / fintech / professional-services firms, growth-stage scale-ups post-Series-B, or French subsidiaries of international holding companies needing FR-domiciled treasury banking with DGS protection. The combination of full ACPR licence + DGS cover + API-first product + fast onboarding fills the structural gap between Qonto (freelancer-and-SME-led) and legacy French banks (multi-decade relationships with slow SME-tech innovation).
Use Qonto if you are a freelancer, sole trader, or small SME below €1M revenue (Solo / Smart / Premium tiers from €0). Use Finom for cross-EU sole traders across DE / NL / FR / IT / ES needing multi-country IBANs. Use Wise Business for material non-EUR FX flows. Use Tide / Anna / Starling Business if you are UK-based. Use BNP Paribas Business / Société Générale Business for larger mid-market SMEs needing structured corporate banking with custom credit facilities.
References
Primary-source list, with capture date 2026-05-18. Memo Bank\'s licence scope, treasury product, and integration depth shift across quarters; verify against the source URLs at decision time.
- Memo Bank — Legal & terms
- Memo Bank — Pricing & SME tiers
- ACPR — Registre des agents financiers (French credit-institution register)
- FGDR — Fonds de Garantie des Dépôts et de Résolution
- Banque de France — Single Supervisory Mechanism overview
- ECB — Single Supervisory Mechanism list of supervised institutions
- Memo Bank — Mid-market SME treasury product
- Memo Bank — API + developer documentation
- Pennylane — Memo Bank integration partner page
- Cegid — Memo Bank integration
- INSEE — French SME definitions and tax-regime context
- EU Directive 2014/49/EU on Deposit Guarantee Schemes
- Memo Bank — Press, customer stories, funding
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Premium plans
- From €449/mo excl. VAT; no commitment required. Mid-market SME tier; multi-user + advanced reporting + API access; competitive SEPA per-transaction rates.
- From €449/mo excl. VAT; annual commitment required. Volume-based pricing structure on top of the €449 floor.