More people are switching to challenger banks and alternative banking platforms than ever before. This is because customers are offered more tailored services, quicker and more efficient banking, and fewer fees.

We take a closer look at five FinTech start-ups that are changing the world of finance and reimagining the definition of what it means to be a bank.

The people behind these new financial institutions are the ones leading change and showing businesses and companies how they can benefit from switching.

The report released by Celent identifies the four APIs the bank has made great use of, one of which is banking as a platform. The other three are APIs for integration, APIs for innovation and APIs for connectivity. The CEO behind Fidor is Matthias Kroener, who has been with the bank since 2003. Some other interesting features the bank offers users is the ability to openly discuss financial decisions with other members. A user’s involvement with Fidor’s Smart Community could lead to cash rewards and the bank’s smart current account interest rates can be influenced by a member’s Facebook likes. Kroener wants Fidor to be the world’s first real community bank.

Monzo was granted a banking license in April 2017 and started offering customers current accounts in October of the same year. 94% of customers made the switch but 98,000 users have not upgraded, and without doing so will no longer be able to use Monzo’s services. Just one month later in November 2017, Monzo raised another £71 million increasing its valuation to £280 million concurrent with London’s FinTech boom. Tom Blomfield Monzo’s chief executive and says “the best way to build a great product is by launching it early and improving it based on feedback from real people.” Monzo is backed by many high profile investors including Eileen Burbridge and Michael Moritz.

They may not technically be described as a challenger bank but they are a mobile banking service. Loot received £1.5 million in funding in the spring of 2016 and used it to relaunch and focus on appealing to millennials. Like challenge banks, customers receive push notifications when they process a transaction on their Loot MasterCard. You can also compare your spending habits anonymously with other users and implement goals and budget tracking features. Loot hasn’t reached the heights of the other challenger banks yet, but with a loyal customer base, great branding, and more development of their product they may end up being a force to be reckoned with.

Like many others, it offers a prepaid debit card, which can be a MasterCard or Visa. The platform also offers free international money transfers, global-free spending and cryptocurrency exchanges. If the cryptocurrency market is about to be legitimised after it’s boom in value over the last two years, Revolut is primed to take advantage of the market with the company already offering a wallet function on their app. However, once the cryptocurrencies are in a user’s Revolut wallet they cannot be moved to another wallet. Revolut is a FinTech start-up that was founded in London by Nicolas Storonksy and Vlad Yatsenko. The company operates out of the FinTech incubator Level39, in Canary Wharf. It already supports spending and ATM withdrawals in 120 currencies. It has been the first digital bank to break even and has benefited from offering paid-for premium services to customers.

The total amount of money raised now stands at around £400 million and the bank has already collected more than £1 billion in deposits. It is a digital financial company and challenger bank with no physical branches. Atom is already backed by BBVA and lists rapper and producer Will.i.am as a technology consultant and spokesman. The app does not offer a current account at the moment but it will in the not-too-distant future. If you are looking for a challenger bank to provide you with a savings account, Atom is the smart choice.