Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

N26 will be leaving the UK

n26.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 517 posts

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#111

Post by n4r9 »

ahmedalsudani wrote: post #72
Karishma1234fff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next step for UK is to reduce regulations compared to EU to make it easier for people to setup shop in UK compared to EU.

The further the UK diverges from EU rules, the harder it will be to trade across the two zones. That’s going to cause ambitious companies to leave for the massive opportunity in the EU, not to set up shop in the UK.

Likely outcome is that the UK will diverge barely at all in terms of the actual rules, but will rename a lot of things and give it all some sort of "Britishness" spit and polish, and most people who voted leave will be happy with it.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#112

Post by threeseed »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #83
mellosouls wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on whether those regulations are socially useful or not. It's not a given that should be the next step.

One of the Leavers' arguments was that the UK wouldn't be subject to the EU's regulations. They claimed that the EU rgulations were stifling and created too much of a nanny-state. Johnson's parliment is pretty much duty bound to create an environment of reduced regulation, otherwise they would be reneging on one of their most important platforms. Things like blatant crime should still be regulated, but creating an ea…

Actually Johnson isn't going to be focused on reduced regulation.

He will be focused on regulatory alignment with the US as he desperately needs to sign a US-UK FTA. And yes the US has a lot less regulations than the EU e.g. chlorinated chicken but in other areas it is not less but just different.

UK businesses are going to find the next decade extremely painful as they deal with trying to support US and EU regulations whilst also dealing with customs controls at the border. So all of the pain with none of the benefits.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#113

Post by Retric »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #66
mellosouls wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on whether those regulations are socially useful or not. It's not a given that should be the next step.

We were repeatedly told that wouldn't be the case before the referendum. It's hard to see the point of Brexit otherwise though.

At least in the US more productive states like New York and California heavily subsidize less productive states like New Mexico.

I think there was real fear that Brexit was required to avoid a similar situation developing in the EU.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#114

Post by rchaud »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #24

Brexit makes for a convenient scapegoat when your business isn’t compelling to U.K. customers.

Isn't that the case for the majority of new businesses? It takes time and investment to build a customer base, and you might be in the red for the first few years.

Better-capitalized companies like Uber, Dropbox and Spotify etc have been around for ~10 years and can't make a profit.

You are thinking of this in terms of Brexit. N26 are thinking of this in terms of the costs of getting UK license and managing UK regulations on top of EU regulations, relative to what they think they can achieve in the UK. They decided it might be safer to stick to their existing market.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#115

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

Nursie wrote: post #76
danpalmer wrote: post #11

Businesses pulling out of the UK based on the Brexit process is bad for the UK, and I'm sure this was indeed mainly motivated by N26's need for a UK banking licence, which is a costly and difficult process to go through. However, it's worth noting that they are pretty small in the UK (~200k users). They're very successful in Germany where banking is a very slow, difficult, manually run industry (from what I've heard)…

Anecdote time - the only person I know who had an account (I work in London fintech at the moment) never used it and only opened it for the fancy translucent card. He seems to have accounts with all the 'challenger' banks.

Of all the challenger banks Revolut seems to be the most used one across countries. Not as main account but quickly sending money around.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#116

Post by blibble »

s_dev wrote: post #94
eugenijusr wrote: post #58

This is not the first market this bank has pulled out from. A couple of years ago they stopped signing up people from two EU markets they previously served (Latvia and Lithuania) without any reason. Granted all existing accounts remained untouched, still these accounts get somewhat crippled functionality and their future is unclear. Although their app is great and I didn't have any big issues with the service itself,…

>I'm somewhat wary of keeping any larger sums of money in my N26 account. It's German. All savings are guaranteed by German gov up to €100k. This is not the case with Monzo or Revolut.

the exact same regulation applies to Monzo and Revolut as it applies to N26 (only the lender of last resort changes)

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#117

Post by n4r9 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #101
threeseed wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should follow UK politics more closely. Referendum was 4 years ago. But only until the recent election i.e. Dec 2019 did Johnson have the numbers in Parliament to actually "get Brexit done". And this week for the first time in 4 years, UK government is formerly advising businesses that there will be a hard Brexit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-confirms-plans...

I am in the UK, I know all about Brexit and British politics ad nauseam . The point remains that this isn't the key reason behind their decision. I guess it's easier to blame Brexit than to explain to your customers that you're closing their accounts because of good old business. They launched in the UK after the Brexit referendum and they don't even need that bank licence to offer electronic current accounts in the…

Brexit affects business; they're not cleanly separable. Companies that were competitive before may not be anymore. The only real test would be to take projected metrics (in terms of business closures, job losses etc) from before the vote and compare to reality.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#118

Post by whoisjuan »

tablloyd wrote: post #18

I'm skeptical of Brexit being the reason that N26 is withdrawing from the UK. They started operation in the uk in October 2018, over 2 years after the referendum result and 6 months before the UK was meant to leave until the date got pushed back.

Not if they were thinking that their European license would still work post Brexit and will have an easy path to conversion of that license when needed. Seems like a reasonable assumption.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#119

Post by davidw »

qubex wrote: post #109
davidw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at your one specific branch, Italy is the same way and it is awful . We signed up for our bank account at one specific branch of a bank in Padova, Italy, and it's impossible to do much besides withdraw some cash at other branches. It's so dumb.

As an Italian, I understand this... but the obvious question is: why didn’t you open it at a branch more convenient for you?

We lived in one place, then moved. We got our mortgage via the one close to us prior to the move. Now we live in the US and it doesn't matter so much as trying to do anything with the bank from here is pretty much impossible. We had asked about having everything moved over to the branch closer to our home, but apparently the logistical requirements are close to those for sending a manned mission to the moon.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#120

Post by mytailorisrich »

n4r9 wrote: post #117
mytailorisrich wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the UK, I know all about Brexit and British politics ad nauseam . The point remains that this isn't the key reason behind their decision. I guess it's easier to blame Brexit than to explain to your customers that you're closing their accounts because of good old business. They launched in the UK after the Brexit referendum and they don't even need that bank licence to offer electronic current accounts in the…

Brexit affects business; they're not cleanly separable. Companies that were competitive before may not be anymore. The only real test would be to take projected metrics (in terms of business closures, job losses etc) from before the vote and compare to reality.

N26 is not competitive in the UK, Brexit or no Brexit, judging by the numbers. There are more established competitors and N26 is struggling to take off.
Post reply on HN