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N26 will be leaving the UK

n26.com

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Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#301

Post by growse »

easytiger wrote: post #268
user5994461 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Monzo doesn't ask for proof of address, while other banks will need something like a utility bill. As a newcomer to the UK, one is pretty much obliged to open a bank account with Monzo.

How is that legal under KYC laws etc?

I'm a little rusty on this, so some details may not be correct.

My understanding is that UK KYC basically don't specify exactly how to validate an individual's identity, only that the bank should do that (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/identity-proofing...). It does suggest that a person's identity is "often someone’s name, date of birth and address", but it doesn't seem to mandate that.

I believe the requirement for banks to hold addresses is actually an AML requirement, and this only comes into effect for larger or riskier transactions.

In a sense, the requirement to have a "provable address" just to open a basic bank account becomes quite problematic when you consider there are people who don't have fixed addresses. Whats worse, you discover that most of the ways in which you can get a fixed address require you to have a bank account (e.g. renting a place to live). It's an entirely unnecessary chicken-and-egg scenario caused by the insistence of the older banks on collecting proof of address, which they didn't technically need to do.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#302

Post by fredophile »

Nextgrid wrote: post #231
Shoue wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A credit card that pays 2% back on all purchases is pretty easy to get in the US. Since cashback isn't taxed this is close to 3% in pre-tax dollars. If having a balance on the card and money in the bank is too confusing you could just pay it daily on days that you use it. I'd say the minimal effort is worth the reward in this case.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#303

Post by growse »

weddpros wrote: post #259
wikibob wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"If they go bankrupt, you will lose all your money " is not entirely true, according to Monese's FAQ: https://support.monese.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002002229-Is... "Unlike banks we do not re-invest customer funds and have to keep all customer money separate to our own company finances. We are required by Regulation to Safeguard all funds received from Monese customers. This guarantees that even in the unlikely even…

This assumes that no-one has criminally run off with the money, lost it down the back of the sofa etc. It's also not clear under what law their customer funds are not treated as company assets, in which case if they're bankrupt, the creditors get first dibs.

The point of the FSCS is that it doesn't matter what happens to your bank. The government will pay you back up to £85k of what you had there.

So while it's not a given that if they go bankrupt you "will" lose all your money, just that you "may" lose all your money. :)

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#304

Post by twic »

jen20 wrote: post #21
Zenst wrote: post #2

As somebody who lives in the UK (London area), I've never even heard of this company N26, let alone aware that they had UK operations. I do frequent the web, youtube, bus stops, tubes, trains and utterly exposed to all forms of marketing. So from my perspective, this does seem like marketing failure from the start - at least from my perspective. Though the only real new Bank in the UK to do well, traction wise would…

> Though the only real new Bank in the UK to do well, traction wise would be Metro Bank This probably indicates that you are not in fact as well exposed to bank marketing as you suspect - it's hard to argue that Monzo and Revolut have not done well.

Let's look at various banks' total assets, as listed on this random website i found [1], in millions of pounds:

  Monzo                 139.82
  Starling              206.64
  Marks & Spencer      5569.90
  Ulster              11641.00
  Metro               21647.00
  Co-operative        23102.80
  Coutts              34280.00
  Clydesdale          43583.00
  HSBC (retail)      238939.00
  Barclays (retail)  251305.00
On that measure, at least, Metro Bank is a hundred times bigger than either Monzo or Starling. Assets are not the whole story, of course; i'd be interested to see numbers for customers, revenues, and some sort of measurement of payment flow.

But i think the lesson here is that if you live in the London tech bubble, it's easy to think that Monzo are huge. Many of my friends bank with Monzo, and i see plenty of Monzo cards being tapped on the readers at the tube station. But we are not representative of the country at large.

[1] https://thebanks.eu/banks-by-country/United-Kingdom

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#305

Post by [deleted] »

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)…

[deleted]

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#306

Post by seemslegit »

bpfrh wrote: post #297
seemslegit wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there was probably a reason but they weren't told it and with N26 being online-only had noone to turn to, you can do a google/twitter search for someone getting police called on them for showing up at their Berlin HQ/Backoffice trying to get some answers.

To be fair, that is nothing unique to N26. In fact in austria easybank is also a bank that afaik only exists "online" and easybank is much older than n26. Edit: Forgot something

To be even fairer, this isn't even unique to online banks - regular banks in the US can "fire" customers without a reason and even if only because their heuristics find their profitability to be too low, but at least they get a notice and a chance to move their money.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#307

Post by antaviana »

weddpros wrote: post #259
wikibob wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"If they go bankrupt, you will lose all your money " is not entirely true, according to Monese's FAQ: https://support.monese.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002002229-Is... "Unlike banks we do not re-invest customer funds and have to keep all customer money separate to our own company finances. We are required by Regulation to Safeguard all funds received from Monese customers. This guarantees that even in the unlikely even…

In any case, unless their mattress is big enough, they still need to put that customer money somewhere, possibly in a bank who can re-invest customer funds.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#308

Post by razakel »

twic wrote: post #280
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)

Looking more broadly than just challenger banks: https://www.which.co.uk/money/banking/bank-accounts/best-and... Top of the list (as it often has been for decades) is First Direct. This is a challenger bank in its own way - it was launched in 1989 to pioneer telephone banking, a disruptive technology at the time! It now has phone and internet banking, but still has no physical branches. Monzo and Starling, the proper…

>The Co-operative Bank is, as the name suggests, a co-operative.

It's no longer a co-op and its relationship with the Co-Operative Group will end later this year.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#309

Post by blibble »

thu2111 wrote: post #271
blibble wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under these circumstances it is impossible to run a business like N26 in the UK serving the EU. you have this the wrong way round: they are a bank based in the EU that was passporting their German (EU) license into the UK in the near future they will not be permitted to operate in the UK as the UK will no longer accept their EU banking license

That's not actually certain. The UK has no fundamental reason not to recognise EU banking licenses, although it may choose not to, or to recognise it but require additional compliance. The UK may end up being 'forced' to not recognise such licenses in retaliation if the EU refuses to recognise British licenses. This is quite likely to happen because the EU has a track record of revoking financial licensing as part of…

> That's not actually certain.

well, you can argue but it's a matter of UK law: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/1149/regulation/2/ma...

the PRA has stated that EEA firms will require a license (with some temporary transition arrangements:

> Passporting rights will now cease at the end of the transition period. Once passporting rights cease, EEA firms currently operating through a passport in the UK under the existing European passport framework will require a Part 4A permission under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) to be able to continue carrying out regulated activities in the UK.

see https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/eu-withdrawal/temporary-perm...

> This is quite likely to happen because the EU has a track record of revoking financial licensing as part of trade wars with European countries. For instance they revoked acceptance of Switzerland's financial licenses as part of trying to pressure the Swiss government to cede significant powers to Brussels.

this is the worst example possible you could have given, the result of the loss of equivalence was that the Swiss gained business, while EU firms lost business

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#310

Post by lexs »

Karishma1234fff wrote: post #43
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)…

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.

This still leaves the question whether it's worth it to "setup shop" easily in the UK with a market of ~66m people or the "hard" setting up shop in the EU with ~500m people. You can't just set up in the UK and then operate in the EU, that's the whole point of the EU...
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