Why European Personal Finance Apps Need a Different Playbook
Mint shut down at the end of 2024. YNAB still charges in US dollars and assumes you bank with Chase or Bank of America. Monarch wants to scrape your accounts via Plaid — which barely works on most European banks. The whole personal finance category was built for the US market, where bank APIs are mature and consumer privacy expectations are lower.
Europe is a different beast. We have GDPR. We have PSD2 with strict consent flows. We have SEPA, MT940, CAMT.053 — formats no American app has ever heard of. We have 27 currencies between EUR, GBP, CHF, SEK, NOK, DKK, PLN, CZK, HUF and the rest. And we have a legal expectation that personal financial data isn't shipped overseas without explicit, informed consent.
HomeBank is built from the ground up for that reality.
GDPR by architecture, not by checkbox
Most US-built finance apps "GDPR-comply" by adding a cookie banner and a Data Processing Agreement template. The fundamental architecture stays the same: your transactions are uploaded to their servers, often via a US aggregator, and stored on infrastructure outside the EEA.
HomeBank takes a different route. There is no server. Your data lives on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, encrypted at rest by iOS / macOS. The only network calls are: ECB exchange rates (public data, no personal info), and Apple's own CloudKit if you opt into multi-device sync (your private iCloud, not ours). GDPR Article 32 is satisfied not by paperwork but by the absence of any processing outside your device.
SEPA-native imports
European banks export account history in well-defined formats. CAMT.053 is the modern XML standard mandated by the SEPA scheme. MT940 is its predecessor, still used by older banks. Both are completely standardised — your bank in Munich, Marseille or Madrid produces files that look the same.
HomeBank reads them natively. You log into your bank, click "Export — CAMT.053 — last 90 days", drop the file into HomeBank, and your transactions appear with payees, dates, amounts and references already parsed. No login screen for a third-party aggregator. No PSD2 strong-customer-authentication ceremony every 90 days. No shared TAN.
The same applies to OFX/QFX (used by N26, Revolut, Wise and Apple-friendly direct banks), CSV, and the legacy XHB format from desktop HomeBank for users migrating from the GTK-based original.
Multi-currency by default, not as an afterthought
If you live in Frankfurt, get paid in EUR, hold a savings account in CHF, and travel to London for work, you need an app that handles multi-currency without forcing you to convert everything to a "home" currency. HomeBank stores each account in its own currency, applies live ECB exchange rates for cross-currency reporting, and shows you both the original and the converted amount on every transaction.
Crypto is treated the same way: Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC and the rest live as their own currency type, with optional price alerts and portfolio tracking. The Premium tier adds the alerting; the basic ledger and conversion are free.
Apple-only — and proud of it
European finance apps that target both iOS and Android tend to use cross-platform frameworks: Flutter, React Native, sometimes web wrappers. The result is software that feels foreign on every platform. Buttons in the wrong places, swipe gestures that don't quite work, fonts that aren't San Francisco.
HomeBank is SwiftUI on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The Mac version is a real Mac app, not a Catalyst port — proper menus, keyboard shortcuts, multi-window, full sidebar, drag-and-drop. The iPad version uses the regular size class with split-view editors. Widgets, Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, Live Activities — all native.
That focus is only possible because we don't try to please everyone. If you're an Apple user, you get a first-class experience. If you're not, this isn't the app for you, and we're upfront about that.
Pricing that fits the EU market
YNAB charges roughly USD 14.99 / month — about 14 € depending on the FX rate. For a tool that you check a few times a week, that's a hard sell when EU disposable incomes are typically lower than US ones and household budgeting apps are seen as utilities, not luxuries.
HomeBank is free for daily use. Unlimited accounts and transactions, all 7 import formats, core reports, App Lock, widgets, multi-currency. Premium is 6,99 € / month or 49,99 € / year (over 40 % saved on yearly), with a 14-day free trial. VAT is included as required by EU consumer law. Family Sharing covers up to 6 family members at no extra cost — so a couple plus kids share one subscription.
Where to start
HomeBank is in TestFlight beta. The store launch will happen in 2026. Request beta access to try it on your iPhone, iPad and Mac before then. We'd love feedback specifically on European bank exports — every CAMT.053 dialect we test against improves the parser for the next user.