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N26 will be leaving the UK

n26.com

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Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#361

Post by ianai »

jfengel wrote: post #317
ianai wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, as a pure outsider, I think anytime you redo a vote on something like this as many times as they did you increase the odds of success (leaving the EU) to 1. People will eventually switch their vote just to not have to vote any longer. It’s not necessarily a ringing nor deep endorsement of the change.

Really, there was just the one referendum, and it succeeded. It was confirmed twice later, once weakly, and a second time more strongly, via parliamentary elections that both gave power to the pro-Brexit party. I don't believe that this constitutes a ringing endorsement of Brexit, and has more to do with the failure of the Remain-focused politicians to pull together properly. But Remain was given three tries to win,…

Right. They repeated whatever election processes it took to get the outcome they wanted. Sauce it up with whatever you want it’s still manufacturing consent.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#362

Post by K0SM0S »

lottin wrote: post #254
CraigJPerry wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Germany was already propping up the less productive countries? They haven’t raised domestic salaries but their productivity remains high so they have a massive trade surplus which then then use to provide cheap loans to consumers in other euro countries who buy more German goods (because, stereotype or not, German stuff is generally damned good). At least that was my understanding of today.

The mechanism through which wealth is redistributed among EU countries is the EU budget. The wealthier countries (Germany and several others) are net contributors to the EU budget, whereas the more economically challenged nations are net receivers of EU funds. However the EU budget is quite tiny in relation to the EU economy, so the redistribution of wealth among EU members that takes place in this way is modest.

Modest is putting it mildly, it's pretty much irrelevant as a net transfer (would take something like 50+ years to align countries, and by then other factors are magnitudes of order more salient in the output).

EU budget always had a kind of political and strategical value attached to it — e.g. to protect agriculture, which is sound strategically (to be able to feed yourself in isolation if it comes to that), but the deeper symbol is that Europe is very afraid of famine. In the 1940s, it all began with cooperation around coal, energy. The EU, at least originally, is built to ensure individual countries can't F with the really important stuff (between each other, nor shoot themselves in the foot).

Evidently, the mission has been met with some difficulties.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#363

Post by hakanensari »

threeseed wrote: post #42
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 sure if you actually follow Brexit but the situation now is completely different to the last 2 years. Michael Gove this week formerly advised businesses that the UK is going down the hard Brexit path i.e. leaving the customs union, single market and with full regulatory divergence from the EU. Under these circumstances it is impossible to run a business like N26 in the UK serving the EU.

But they appear to be already operating in other non-EU settings. What would make the UK any different?

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#364

Post by telesilla »

gigatexal wrote: post #186
Nursie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

N26 is amazing. I use it daily in Germany as an expat

I use it too, and have just experienced how wonderful their customer support is thanks to a stolen card (online unauthorized charges, likely via a web store I used recently). I was alerted to the charges thanks to the app alert, which is really fantastic. They fixed the problem swiftly and sent me a new one without charge. Very pleased with the good service. Plus I'm not aware of the lock function in the app so I'm going to keep the new card locked unless I want to use it, thus avoiding future possibility of fraud.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#365

Post by tnolet »

Hamuko wrote: post #352
tnolet wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, N26 here in Germany advertises with “no hidden charges” and then goes on to charge you for almost everything. Like using an ATM more than 3 times a month. What?

My free N26 has five free ATM withdrawals per month. However, that is about five more than I use in the median month, so I don't really care about it. I really only need cash when buying second-hand and really even second-hand transactions are increasingly turning to mobile payments.

I'm in Berlin. Cash is king here.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#366

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

p0llard wrote: post #152
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.

I've always found this slightly odd, since Monzo is an actual bank (and thus receives FSCS protection) whereas Revolut is not (and does not).

Monzo does not exist outside of the UK (and now US?)

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#367

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#368

Post by egwor »

luckylion wrote: post #100
shadowgovt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the sense that "Brexit means N26 needs to now file a lot of license paperwork that wasn't necessary under EU law," yes.

If they believed their business would make them money in the UK, filing paperwork wouldn't be an issue.

I've never even heard of them....

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#369

Post by Symbiote »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #322
easytiger wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mind you this was 10 years ago, when the UK was Just introducing PIN code for every card transaction Err. C&P was universal by 2006ish from memory, but many venues just didn't accept anything other than cash at all. I suspect you are misremembering.

We started a UK shop 16 years ago and still had counterfoil machines (you put a card in, put a paper slip on it, push a roller over the card to ink an impression of the details, ...). You could definitely still swipe your card then. Also from memory, I'd guess 10-12 years as the point when chip&pin was required for _every_ card transaction. Now of course we have moved on to also have contactless.

You can still use counterfoil machines if you want to. You just accept all the risk.

A former employer uses one for selling excess stock to staff.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#370

Post by thawaway1837 »

Our company has opened several new Amsterdam offices thanks to Brexit already. Currently they have probably added low double digit jobs in Amsterdam, and cut single digit jobs in the UK (explicitly related to Brexit...net jobs in the UK are probably even).

This may not sound like a lot, but for a company that operated in every EU country, but only had a single office, in London, that employs 1000s of really well paid employees, and had no plans at all to change anything, it’s a huge step.

At the very least, London now has competition from Amsterdam in terms of European work, and EU employees will likely prefer moving to Amsterdam with free movement than to London with the hassles involved.

And this is right at the beginning of Brexit at a time where nothing has actually changed thanks to the 1 year continuity period. If the deal that the UK strikes a year from now (which is only likely to make things worse) is substantially bad, then things may change very rapidly.

Brexit was a decision by a generation that did not fight the wars, but always wished they did and that greatly benefited from the EU, but their desire to believe that they were being oppressed and they had to throw off the shackles from the oppressors, like their ancestors did, led them to screw the newer generations while they themselves are at the end of their lives and will barely suffer from the consequences.

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