Germany’s neobank N26, one of Europe’s largest financial technology companies valued at more than $9 billion, is finally ready to enter crypto and stock trading after pushing for global expansion.
While Berlin-based N26 Online Banking was among the early contributors to Europe’s fintech boom, Berlin-based N26 Online Banking’s global ambitions led to a failure to diversify services, said N26 co-founder and co-CEO, Max Tainthal in an interview with the Financial Times.
After leaving the two most important fintech markets, the United States and the United Kingdom, N26 plans to “focus on its European business”, offering new products and services to its seven million customers.
N26 aims to launch a cryptocurrency trading business in 2022 and then a broker on the exchange, rather than “setting flags in new markets,” according to Tinthal, who acknowledged that the online bank needed to expand its offering.
The N26 mobile application does not currently support cryptocurrency, and the functionality of the future product related to cryptocurrency trading has not been disclosed. Cointelegraph contacted N26 for more information and this article will be updated pending further details.
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N26 announced its exit from the US market in November when it offered additional financial products and services to its European customers. “26 will focus its strategy on expanding its digital banking experience into new sectors, including investment products, next year,” she said.
In May 2021, the company suffered several restrictions from German financial supervisor BaFin, due in part to a lack of money laundering controls. BaFin determined that the N26, which received an average of 170,000 new customers per month last year, could only serve 50,000 customers per month.
Describing BaFin’s new customer base as a major impediment to the growth of investor-funded fintech, Tainthal said he expects the state to do so by the end of summer 2022.
