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N26 will be leaving the UK

n26.com

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Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#501

Post by zaarn »

tomatocracy wrote: post #497
zaarn wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU generally talks to the industry affected by some regulations, this is generally to prevent deploying a regulation or law that doesn't really work in practise and to find a reasonable compromise (of course, sometimes multiple industries end up at the table, some with more political power than others, which is how you get the EU copyright reform pushed by newspapers and yellow journalists)

The effect is more often, and I think more accurately, termed 'regulatory capture' than corruption. The other side of it is that the incumbents work to ensure that regulation presents a very high barrier to entry for any would-be competitor.

Well, in this case it's not about competitors, it's about newspapers and publishers wanting to extract money from Google for displaying the attribute of their website.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#502

Post by mprev »

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…

Metro Bank is going through some difficulties, to say the least, right now.

First Direct and Marks and Spencer are brands of HSBC. First Direct is independent enough that you get a very different service from them compared to vanilla HSBC.

As others have said, Co-op is owned by private equity now. When they were a true co-op, you could forgive them the odd bit of sloppy service but there's no excuse now.

If I were coming to the UK for the first time, I'd see if a local bank in my country (usually it's HSBC or Santander) could offer to help me set up when a UK account with their local subsidiary. KYC, credit checks, etc can make opening an account difficult when you're new to the country.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#503

Post by mprev »

Nextgrid wrote: post #293
ubercow13 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Monzo isn't profitable, what makes you think Starling would be? They have basically the same product except with more expensive (for them) incentives.

Starling has other sources of income like their enterprise services which allow businesses to connect to the Faster Payments network: https://www.starlingbank.com/paymentservices/ In addition they have business accounts which don’t have any of the costly features like interest, free cash deposits, etc so they’re profitable for Starling as they profit off the interest (especially relevant for business accounts as they…

Starling business accounts do allow cash deposits through the Post Office network but they're chargeable, like cash deposits on any business account I've seen.

Domestic ATM withdrawals are a cost for Starling as they have no network of their own; they're not even part of Link.

I'm not sure that the paltry interest they can gain from business deposits will be enough to make those accounts profitable (they just announced another £60m of funding this week).

I'm a relatively happy personal customer of Starling, so I'm not against them, but I do think it's a bit optimistic to say Starling's business accounts are profitable based on no evidence.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#504

Post by benhurmarcel »

_n_b_ wrote: post #31
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)…

N26 is also very successful in France, whose banking industry is--I can confirm--very much slow, difficult, and _very_ manually run. They can charge fees for accounts because their fees are still so much lower than the incumbents they're displacing. (And you can do stuff without having to talk to your bank counsellor, at your one specific branch, in person... how novel!) So I can see how their model wouldn't be very…

France has had good online banks for years now, with free accounts/cards/transfers and everything managed online.

You just have to choose your bank carefully. Boursorama or Fortuneo are typical decent examples.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#505

Post by thinkingemote »

notahacker wrote: post #393
razakel wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

True, it's only minority-owned by the Cooperative Group, though it does supposedly now also recognise the influence of an independently-founded customer cooperative on its ethical policy. [any fintech enthusiasts trying to think of a challenger bank niche the UK hasn't already got multiple heavily-marketed competing alternatives in might like to go down the ethics route...]

The Group sold it's 1% in September 2017 and has no longer any holdings with the bank. The group still has a marketing agreement with the bank until 2020.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#506

Post by benhurmarcel »

buboard wrote: post #160
butler14 wrote: post #29

Out-competed by Monzo/Starling/Revolut and co. and blaming Brexit. Not the first to use that excuse, and certainly not the last.

do you know if these offer services to EU customers? and specifically business accounts?

Only Revolut offer services in the EU.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#508

Post by nullandvoid »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #335
Nextgrid wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, what’s card alias?

I'm guessing they're referring to having virtual cards you can use for one transaction or merchant, and which you can kill at any time without having to change your primary card number.

Virtual cards.. sorry had forgot the name at the time thought the card alias term would be obvious haha

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#509

Post by user5994461 »

cosmodisk wrote: post #384
easytiger wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that legal under KYC laws etc?

I find the application of KYC differs widely not just between different banks but also between people working within the same banks, sometimes even within the same branch.

Monzo has no KYC. They ask you to record a brief video saying your name and you want to join. That's it.

Other banks vary a lot in what paper they accept, but they always want some papers.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#510

Post by razakel »

notahacker wrote: post #393
razakel wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

True, it's only minority-owned by the Cooperative Group, though it does supposedly now also recognise the influence of an independently-founded customer cooperative on its ethical policy. [any fintech enthusiasts trying to think of a challenger bank niche the UK hasn't already got multiple heavily-marketed competing alternatives in might like to go down the ethics route...]

Ecology Building Society, Charity Bank and Triodos have pretty much sewn up the ethics market between them.
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