In an interview with the Financial Times, Max Tayenthal, co-founder of N26, recognizes strategic errors that are now putting the German nobank in difficulty.
Launched in 2015 in Berlin, N26 made the choice from the start rapid internationalization, in order to attract customers en masse. In just a few years, it has thus broadened its presence to 24 European countries, including France, and today claims 7 million customers. It was also the first European nobank to try its luck in the United States, in July 2019. A short-lived adventure: N26 indeed announced last November its departure from the US market.
In an article published speak Financial Times, Max Tayenthal, co-founder with Valentin Stalf, admits that the choice to concentrate its resources on this internationalization rather than on the development of new products was undoubtedly a mistake. N26, in particular, a rat the boom in cryptoassets or trading, which makes the beautiful days, for example, of its British competitor Revolut. Would we have developed trading or cryptos rather than going into the United States? In retrospect, that would have been a good idea, admits Max Tayenthal. N26 is expected to offer cryptoassets to its clients this year and trading later.
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The subject is all the more sensitive as the growth of N26 is currently hampered by Bafin, the policeman of the financial sector in Germany. The regulator asked him to limit 50,000 per month the number of new account openings, time to improve in particular its anti-money laundering systems. Its rate of conquest was previously 170,000 accounts per month on average.
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