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N26 stops doing business in the UK
After just 16 months, the Berlin smartphone bank N26 is withdrawing from the British market. This was announced by company founders Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal on Tuesday in a blog entry: "Now that Great Britain has left the European Union, we will no longer be able to operate in Great Britain with our European banking license in due course."
All existing accounts should be closed by April 15th. The company asks its customers to transfer their funds to other bank accounts. According to its own statements, N26 recently had "several hundred thousand" customers in Great Britain.
The start-up only started in the UK in October 2018. The Berlin founders were able to use their German banking license for this. Passport rights allow financial firms that are authorized in one EU country to offer their services throughout the European Union. However, even then it was unclear what would happen after the Brexit. "We have a license and it is clear that it will remain valid through a transition period," said company founder Stalf in October 2018. Apparently they don't want to wait anymore and leave the island as quickly as possible. The competition is already wooing disappointed customers.
In Germany, N26 was a pioneer for a long time. Seven years ago, Berliners were one of the first start-ups to develop a bank account purely for smartphones. They have won many customers, especially among young people. In the end, however, the founders were repeatedly accused of concentrating too much on growth and too little on security. After criminals allegedly used more N26 accounts for illegal payments, the financial regulator has forced Bafin to do more against money laundering. In Berlin, N26 also had to pay a fine of 50,000 euros because the smartphone bank is said to have violated the General Data Protection Regulation.
N26 claims to have more than five million customers in over two dozen countries. In the United States - where the startup has been in business since September 2019 - more than 250,000 customers have been won in recent months in cooperation with Axos Bank. However, the start-up had to postpone the launch several times beforehand.
