Index · Fintech · Companion to the Stablecoin Citation Share Index 2026 and the Reddit Citation Share Index 2026. Methodology: 5W AI Communications Citation Index (locked) · Dataset: 50 buyer prompts × 5 engines × 3 reads · 750 observations · May 12 – June 6, 2026.
The Index
Ask a chatbox where to open a checking account, get paid early, or move money without fees, and the answer is a short list of brands — and a much shorter list of winners. Three neobanks capture more than half of all citations across the five engines.
This is the inaugural Neobanks Citation Share Index — the first ranked reading of which neobanks the AI engines actually cite when buyers ask the question. Same locked 5W Citation Index methodology as the Stablecoin and Reddit Indexes. Quarterly. Comparable across the franchise.
Headline finding: Chime owns retail. Revolut owns global. SoFi owns financial-life. Cash App owns peer-to-peer. The rest fight for the long tail.
The Citation Share Leaderboard
Citation Share = each neobank's share of total branded mentions across the 750-observation dataset. Index Score = the locked five-dimension composite (Citation Frequency 40%, Cross-Engine Breadth 20%, Query-Type Breadth 20%, Extractability 15%, Crawl Access 5%).
| # | Neobank | Focus | Citation Share | Index Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chime | U.S. retail / SpotMe | 19.4% | 88.6 |
| 2 | Revolut | Global / multi-currency | 16.8% | 85.3 |
| 3 | SoFi | Financial-life / member | 14.2% | 82.1 |
| 4 | Cash App | P2P / Bitcoin | 10.6% | 76.4 |
| 5 | Varo | Banking charter | 7.3% | 65.7 |
| 6 | Current | Teen / Gen Z | 5.9% | 59.2 |
| 7 | Monzo | UK / community | 5.4% | 57.8 |
| 8 | N26 | EU / mobile-first | 4.8% | 52.6 |
| 9 | Dave | Cash advance | 4.1% | 46.9 |
| 10 | Mercury | B2B / startup | 3.7% | 44.3 |
Read the gap. Chime, Revolut, and SoFi together hold 50.4% of all citations. Add Cash App and four names capture 61.0%. The chatbox treats neobanks like a top-four category — with Mercury as the only B2B-specific name to crack the top ten.
Engine-by-Engine
The five engines do not agree. Chime and SoFi are nearly always in the top three. Revolut leads only inside Perplexity, where global and multi-currency framing weighs heavier.
| Engine | #1 | #2 | #3 | Notable | Hostile to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Chime | SoFi | Revolut | Mercury rise | Dave |
| Claude | SoFi | Chime | Revolut | Varo lift | Cash App invest |
| Gemini | Chime | Cash App | SoFi | Current teen | N26 US |
| Perplexity | Revolut | Chime | SoFi | Monzo UK | Dave |
| Google AI Overviews | Chime | SoFi | Cash App | Sparse | Mercury B2B |
ChatGPT
Default U.S. recommendation is Chime. SoFi shows up consistently on financial-life prompts — checking, savings, loans, investing in one. Mercury surfaces aggressively on startup-treasury queries.
Claude
Most conservative engine. Leans toward SoFi for the FDIC-via-partner-bank framing and the broader financial-life positioning. Flags Cash App's investment products with explicit risk language.
Gemini
Strongest on Cash App, where Block ecosystem coverage compounds with retail-payment queries. Picks up Current on teen and parental-control questions faster than the others.
Perplexity
The only engine where Revolut leads. Heaviest user of Reddit and trade-press coverage, both of which favor Revolut's global multi-currency story. Monzo also surfaces here on UK-specific prompts.
Google AI Overviews
Sparse. Picks one or two names per query. Chime dominates the recommended slot on U.S. queries. Anything outside the top five is functionally invisible.
Movers, Risers, and the Long Tail
Climbing
Mercury — the only B2B neobank in the top ten. Strong on startup-treasury prompts inside ChatGPT and Claude. Coverage compounds with venture-capital and YC-adjacent press.
Monzo — still UK-anchored, but surfacing in U.S. ChatGPT and Perplexity answers when buyers ask about app-first banking. The community story translates better than the geography.
Holding
Chime, SoFi, Revolut, Cash App — the entrenched top four. Different frames (retail, financial-life, global, P2P) keep them from cannibalizing each other inside the chatbox.
At risk
Dave — cash-advance framing produces risk-language attachments across three of five engines. The product category itself is being described cautiously in the chatbox.
N26 — the 2022 U.S. exit continues to anchor outdated answers. Engines mention N26 as a European-only option even on U.S. queries, costing it citation share.
Invisible
Sub-rank #10, citation share collapses. Brex, Ramp, Found, Lili, Bluevine, and Aspiration all received fewer than 12 mentions total across the dataset. The chatbox does not surface them on consumer-neobank queries. Brex and Ramp do surface on dedicated B2B and corporate-card prompts, which are scored in a separate Index.
The Buyer Prompts
Fifty prompts grouped into five intents. Below, a representative slice.
| Intent | Representative prompts |
|---|---|
| Choice & safety | Best online bank? Safest neobank? Is Chime FDIC insured? Are neobanks safe? |
| Fees & features | Best no-fee checking? Which neobank pays interest? Best app for early direct deposit? |
| Global & travel | Best neobank for travel? Multi-currency account? Best bank for digital nomads? |
| Credit & lending | Neobank with personal loans? Best for credit building? Cash advance apps? |
| Startup & business | Best startup bank account? Mercury vs Brex? Banking for founders? |
What This Means for Operators
Neobanks are a frame-driven category in the chatbox. Buyers do not ask for the best neobank — they ask for the best neobank for a thing. Each top-four player owns a frame. The opportunity for the rest of the category is to own an adjacent frame, not to fight on the entrenched one.
Four moves that work
1. Pick the frame the chatbox already has space for. Teen banking, founder banking, gig-economy banking, expat banking — adjacent frames with low top-three competition. Build for the frame, then build the citation evidence around it.
2. Publish the regulatory and partner-bank stack publicly. FDIC partner names, charter status, account-protection mechanics. The engines reward clarity here and penalize the absence of it.
3. Earn the Reddit citation layer. r/personalfinance and r/financialindependence are doing real work for the top four. See the Reddit Citation Share Index for the ranked source map.
4. Audit for the outdated answer. N26 is being recommended as European-only on U.S. queries because nobody on the issuer side has refreshed the engines. The fix is corrected, primary-source publishing — not advertising.
Why these ten neobanks?
The ten ranked were the only neobanks to receive at least 12 mentions across the 750-observation dataset. Names that appear less frequently were cited but did not score meaningfully on the cross-engine and query-type dimensions. Future Index releases will include B2B-specific names (Brex, Ramp, Mercury extended) in a dedicated Corporate Card and Treasury Index.
Is Cash App really a neobank?
For the buyer asking the chatbox, yes. Cash App is the answer to a wide set of neobank-adjacent prompts — early direct deposit, free P2P, debit card, savings. The engines treat it as in-category. The Index follows the engines.
Why isn't Brex or Ramp in the top ten?
Both are B2B-specific and score outside the top ten on consumer-neobank prompts. They will rank in a separate Corporate Card and Treasury Index — same locked methodology, different prompt set. The unit ranked is the brand; the scope ranked is the buyer intent.
How often is this Index re-run?
Quarterly, aligned with the Stablecoin Index and the Reddit Index. The next reading is September 2026.
Can a neobank change its score?
Yes. The inputs are all inside the operator's control — frame selection, primary-source publishing, third-party citation development, retrieval-formatted content. The Index is a scoreboard, not a verdict.
Disclosure
Everything-PR and 5W AI Communications share common ownership. Everything-PR reports independently on the communications industry, including on research produced by 5W. Editorial decisions are made by Everything-PR's editorial team.
About Everything-PR
Everything-PR is the intelligence platform for communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era. Thirty-plus publications. Publishing since 2009. Original reporting, research, and analysis — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question.
Related EPR Coverage
- Stablecoin Citation Share Index 2026 — sister Index using the same locked methodology.
- Reddit Citation Share Index 2026 — the ranked subreddit source map.
- EPR Fintech pillar.
- EPR Financial Services pillar.
- EPR AI Visibility pillar.
