Purpose This study aims to analyse and understand customer sentiments and perceptions from neobanking mobile applications by using advanced machine learning and text mining techniques. Design/methodology/approach This study explores a substantial large data set of 330,399 user reviews available in the form of unstructured textual data from neobanking mobile applications. This study is aimed to extract meaningful patterns, topics, sentiments and themes from the data. Findings The results show that the success of neobanking mobile applications depends on user experience, security features, personalised services and technological innovation. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to textual resources available in the public domain, and hence may not present the entire range of user experiences. Further studies should incorporate a wider range of data sources and investigate the impact of regional disparities on user preferences. Practical implications This study provides actionable ideas for neobanking service providers, enabling them to improve service quality and mobile application user experience by integrating customer input and the latest trends. These results can offer important inputs to the process of user interaction design, implementation of new features and customer support services. Originality/value This study uses text mining approaches to analyse neobanking mobile applications, which further contribute to the growing literature on digital banking and FinTech. This study offers a unique view of consumer behaviour and preferences in the realm of digital banking, which will add to the literature on the quality of service concerning mobile applications.