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N26 will be leaving the UK

n26.com

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Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#231

Post by Nextgrid »

Shoue wrote: post #195
speedski1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random question, but I'm moving to London in a few months, do you have any suggestions on banks or "challenger" banks I should go with? (couldn't figure out how to DM you, not sure if it's possible on Hacker News)

Both Monzo and Starling are good. If you're good at budgeting and never dip into negative balances I suggest getting a cashback or points credit card too, and then you can simply put your income into an instant savings account until you need it for the monthly direct debit to pay off your credit card and earn interest _and_ cashback/points.

Cashback is very low in Europe (thankfully) due to the interchange fees being capped by law.

Frankly even in the US I personally wouldn’t bother using credit cards. The management overhead of maintaining one (you have to pay it off on time, have 2 balances to look at, etc) is IMO not worth the money.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#232

Post by kayoone »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #212
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)…

German/European banking is not so bad, you can transfer money in one business day to any other EU/SEPA country without charge. You also have debit cards that are widely accepted and allow you to pay directly from your bank account, which is also nice. There are not so many banks that offer APIs (only Commerzbank and N26 I think) but there are other interfaces that allow you to export transactions to third party syste…

Due to PSD2 every bank in Germany/EU has to offer APIs for 3rd parties to access the data, but they all do it in their own way so the open banking standards like the UK has are still better, but it's something.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#234

Post by dbetteridge »

wikibob wrote: post #209
speedski1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random question, but I'm moving to London in a few months, do you have any suggestions on banks or "challenger" banks I should go with? (couldn't figure out how to DM you, not sure if it's possible on Hacker News)

100% Monzo. https://monzo.com/blog/technology Also check out all the awesome tech meetups they host at their new office. There's a very strong and small open source 'cloud' tech community in London where everyone knows everyone. Try hard to meet some people and before you know it you'll have a new group of friends.

Can confirm on Monzo being awesome

1) Sign-up quick and painless (You need a UK address though)

2) Card arrived in a few days

3) Activation just requires tapping it to your phone

Going to have to check out these meetups, sounds like fun.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#235

Post by germanier »

Tomte wrote: post #154
chimeracoder wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a specific reason for that They're the only one that allows you to enter a second name via "care of"[0] in the address, and German postal services won't deliver mail if no name on the envelope matches the person registered at that address. In other words, you end up in a catch-22 where you can't sign a lease because you don't have a bank account, and you can't get a bank account because you don't have a le…

"c/o" is fine, I've used that before. [edit – wrong:] The German-language equivalent (that most young people won't even recognize anymore) is "z. Hd." ("zu Händen" – "to the hands of").

The German equivalent would be p. Adr. (although I haver never seen that much in the wild). z. Hd. is used in the opposite way, i.e. you write the actual recipient after it, not the address provider.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#236

Post by Nextgrid »

jackdh wrote: post #134
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Interesting I would say Monzo is by a mile. Edit, I had a quick look at Google play downloads as a benchmark (Not great I know) but looks like you're right. Monzo is 1m~ Revolut is 5m~

Problem is that Revolut is an electronic money institution while Monzo is a bank. If they go bust with the former you’re out of money, with the latter the government will refund your money up to 85k£.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#237

Post by LinusU »

wikibob wrote: post #219
LinusU wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Monese since I moved here ~2.5 years ago. It was great as I was able to open the account in the weeks _before_ moving over, and thus already had a ready to go payment card & UK Bank Account when I arrived!

Monese is not a bank. They are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (Equivalent to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation FDIC in the USA). They are an "Authorised Electronic Money Institution" like PayPal. If they go bankrupt, you will lose all your money. https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=0010X000... I'd strongly recommend you open a real banking account.

Hmm, good to know!

According to their site 100% of my funds should be covered since they are required to hold any client funds in a separate account which they cannot use for anything at all.

https://support.monese.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002002229-Is...

Not sure what the implications are with that vs being a "real bank"

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#238

Post by geff82 »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #212
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)…

German/European banking is not so bad, you can transfer money in one business day to any other EU/SEPA country without charge. You also have debit cards that are widely accepted and allow you to pay directly from your bank account, which is also nice. There are not so many banks that offer APIs (only Commerzbank and N26 I think) but there are other interfaces that allow you to export transactions to third party syste…

A bit late but: instant money transfer are now possible at almost every bank in Germany.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#239

Post by Zenst »

threatofrain wrote: post #178
marrs wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a tautology at all, it's the patently obvious. The only business reason they have to not apply for the licence is that they won't have any profits left over afterwards. Ergo they aren't very profitable, unless you're claiming that the licence is designed to be so costly as to keep foreign companies out, which I highly doubt, given that Britain (and especially the Conservative party) like to attract foreign i…

Opportunity cost is another obvious reason to leave money on the table. If the company is small enough then they might rather focus on the EU first, esp. if they thought their specialty was “doorway to EU banking”.

That aspect does make more sense, and perhaps longer term with a divergence in regulation and with, makes sense short to mid term and may be an avenue they try again market wise and until then, best focus on growth area's.

But equally, they started in the UK in October 2018, and perhaps they may of gambled that the UK would stay more aligned or in the EU is my thoughts upon this as well.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#240

Post by JackFr »

ieS7rpVU wrote: post #131
matthewmacleod wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather have regulated banks please.

I wouldn't. Why can't you use banks that agree to follow rules you like and be monitored by people you trust while I can use banks that agree to follow rules I like and be monitored by people I trust?

> Why can't you use banks that agree to follow rules you like and be monitored by people you trust while I can use banks that agree to follow rules I like and be monitored by people I trust?

There are 2 reasons.

The first is because ultimately you rely on the state's monopoly on legitimate violence to enforce those rules. If you want protection from fraud or simply outright theft, you need to rely on the mechanism of the state. And the state might determine that a contract or transaction, though voluntarily entered into by both parties, is still unenforceable because it unconscionable or harms the general welfare.

The other reason is the experience of the Great Depression, where for instance over 5000 banks failed in the US prior to the creation of deposit insurance. People making prudent decisions in good faith can still collectively make a system unstable. And if you lose you savings that's a problem for you, but it a few million people lose their savings that becomes a problem for society.

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