Germany’s neobank N26 finally appears to be ready to implement crypto and stock trading after striving for global expansion. The N26 bank is one of the largest European Fintechs and is valued at more than $9 billion.
N26 focuses on European markets
Despite being an early player in the financial technology boom across Europe, the global ambitions of Berlin-based online bank N26 caused a setback in the diversification of services. Like this said N26 co-founder and co-CEO Max Tayenthal in an FT interview.
After exiting two critical fintech markets, the United States and the United Kingdom, N26 plans to “sharpen its focus on its European operations.” It will do this by introducing new products and services to its 7 million customers.
According to Tayenthal, who admitted that the online bank needs to expand its product universe, N26 aims to launch a crypto trading company in 2022. This is followed by a stock brokerage, rather than ‘setting flags in new markets’.
The N26 mobile app does not currently offer crypto functionality. Features of the upcoming product related to crypto trading are yet to be revealed.
N26 announced its exit from the US market in November as it began looking for additional financial products and services for its European customers hinted. The announcement was as follows:
“N26 will focus its strategy over the coming year on broadening its digital banking experience into new markets to include investment products”
Several restrictions imposed last year
The company was hit by several limits from the German financial watchdog BaFin. This was partly due to the lack of anti-money laundering controls. BaFin ruled that the N26 may not take on more than 50,000 customers per month. This was while the company was taking on an average of 170,000 new customers per month last year.
Tayenthal described the new customer cap enforced by BaFin as a huge constraint on the growth investor-funded fintech. He also said he expects the situation to be better by the end of the summer of 2022.
