EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignFintech & NeobanksHeadquarters: NL

Knab: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Knab is a Dutch online bank aimed mainly at self-employed people and entrepreneurs, with an offering for private customers as well. The bank provides business and private current accounts, savings products including VAT savings, a business credit card, bookkeeping software and integrations with accounting packages, insurance for the self-employed, investing, pension products and mortgages. Customers manage their money through the website and a mobile app.

Knab has its only office in Amsterdam. Since 1 November 2024 it has been owned by BAWAG Group, a listed Austrian bank headquartered in Vienna, which acquired all shares in Knab from a.s.r. The parent company is therefore in another EU member state; there is no non-European owner. The software is proprietary and delivered only as a managed service, without a self-hosting option. For a European organisation this means a Dutch banking relationship within a European banking group, under European supervision.

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Sovereignty score
71 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-2100
    Headquartered in the EU: European law applies
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    EU-only hosting
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-360
    Key management with a European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-655
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 9, 2026
Headquarters
NL (EU)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent company
ATVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Hosting signal
AMAZON-02 - Amazon.com, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
Category
Fintech & Neobanks
Type
Product
Website
knab.nl ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Knab

The European alternatives to Knab come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

116 European Fintech & Neobanks vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Knab

Knab is headquartered in NL and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data. The ultimate owner is based in AT, also within Europe.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so Knab scores best on data residency.

Knab is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Knab together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Knab?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Knab include 1822direkt, ActivoBank and Air Bank. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Knab?

Our list of EU alternatives to Knab is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Knab GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Knab is headquartered in NL (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes Knab an EU-sovereign choice in its own right; the EU alternatives on this page are comparable European tools.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 9, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Fintech & Neobanks

Fintech & Neobanks: Digital banks, neobanks, money transfers and fintech services. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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8 European alternatives to Knab — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score