bunq B.V. holds a full banking license provided by one of Europe's most reliable and respected banking authorities, the Dutch National Bank. Essentially, this means that all the deposits at bunq (capped at €100'000 per customer) are fully insured via DNB's Deposit Guarantee Scheme and backed by the government of The Netherlands. On top of this, this license ensures that the challenger bank is subject to a high level of scrutiny and intense audits by regulators. So yes, bunq is a real bank.