Aurum NeoBank is marketed as a sleek crypto ‚neobank' with an app, balances and ‚Aurum cards'. But the central question for anyone considering it is simple: is the Aurum bank a real bank? Based on the public record, the answer is no. No banking or e-money licence has been found in any jurisdiction that has examined Aurum, and multiple regulators have warned that the platform is unlicensed. The ‚neobank' label appears to be marketing wrapped around a custodial crypto deposit scheme.
Is Aurum a real bank? What we found
A real neobank does not hold a banking charter itself in most cases; instead it operates under a regulated partner bank or, in the EU, an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) or payment-institution licence. That licence brings supervision, capital requirements, audited accounts and — critically — deposit protection. We have found no such authorisation for the Aurum NeoBank or any Aurum entity. Instead, regulators have published the opposite finding.
- Greece (HCMC) stated Aurum has no EU/MiCA authorisation (15 May 2026).
- France (AMF) blacklisted it (12 Jun 2026); Australia (ASIC) added it to its Investor Alert List (22 Jun 2026).
- Hong Kong (SFC) flagged it as a suspicious virtual-asset platform (22 Jun 2026).
The Polish ‚Aurum Neo-Bank' shell
The branding leans on a Polish company, Aurum Neo-Bank Sp. z o.o. A standard Polish limited company (Sp. z o.o.) is not a bank and cannot legally take deposits or call itself a bank without authorisation from the regulator. Poland's financial supervisor, the KNF, filed a criminal referral to the Warsaw Prosecutor on 11 June 2026. A shell company name that contains the words ‚Neo-Bank' is not a banking licence — it is a name.
‚Aurum cards' and the custodial trap
The Aurum cards and balance screens give the feel of a bank account, but the underlying system is custodial. The app generates each user's wallet server-side and can return the private key — meaning the operator controls user funds. In banking terms there is no segregation, no deposit insurance and no independent custodian. This is the classic ‚not your keys, not your coins' problem dressed up as a Aurum crypto bank.
- No banking or EMI licence located in any jurisdiction.
- Server-side wallets the platform can fully control.
- No deposit-protection scheme behind any balance.
Why the ‚neobank' framing matters
On-chain data on BNB Smart Chain shows the money trail behaves like a Ponzi, not a bank: of roughly $77.2M paid out, about $45.5M (54%) went to 23 wallets that never deposited, and around $31.7M was recycled to earlier users as fake ‚ROI'. A licensed neobank would be audited and supervised; here, in our analysis, the ‚bank' branding mainly serves to make a high-risk deposit scheme feel safe.
If you are asking ‚is Aurum a real bank', treat the absence of any licence as the answer. Before depositing, check the warnings and regulator findings collected here: see the regulator warnings.