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N26 will be leaving the UK

n26.com

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Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#121

Post by marrs »

threeseed wrote: post #50
marrs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they were talking about doing that or leaving without a deal. That message didn't really change until the Chequers speech in July 2018, when no deal was essentially taken off the table.

Leaving without a deal under May was a meaningless threat. It was never going to happen and Parliament had the numbers to prevent that from logistically happening anyway. The difference now is that Johnson has the numbers, the mandate and the will for a no-deal Brexit. And Gove has just warned businesses this is happening: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/10/checks-on-e...

It's easy to say that with hindsight. At the time it wasn't so clear. Well, perhaps it was after the general election in '17. But then it was also clear that the political situation was very unstable and could change again at any moment, which it eventually did. It would have been pretty arrogant to presume that things were going to be business as usual.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#122

Post by tnolet »

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)…

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?

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#123

Post by threeseed »

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.

But wait until you see the reduced regulations you will end up with.

US is demanding regulatory alignment in agriculture and food safety as a condition of the FTA for example. And the US has significantly higher rates of food borne illnesses compared to the UK due to these weaker regulations:

https://www.sustainweb.org/news/feb18_US_foodpoisoning/

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#124

Post by reubenmorais »

felixfbecker wrote: post #105
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)…

SEPA transfers in Germany are both free and instant too. Not saying it's not a slow and manually run industry in general, but I have nothing to complain about transactions.

I moved from Brazil to Germany last year and if you consider this instant I have bad news to share. At least with Commerzbank it's slow as molasses.

In Brazil for same bank transfers I'd get an SMS in my phone at the same time as the sender got the confirmation that the transfer went through on their phone. Transfers between banks would typically clear in 2 hours or less. With cash withdrawals I got an SMS in my phone before the ATM was finished counting the notes.

Here in Germany I have to reverse engineer what the entries on my transaction history were from vague hints in the business name, because they take days to show up in my account. Cash withdrawals from an ATM run by my own bank sometimes take 5 days to show up in my transaction history. I regularly do SEPA transfers to Portugal and it arrives at the end of the next business day, at the earliest. SEPA transfers in Germany sometimes clear same day, after several hours, but usually some point in the next day.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#125

Post by chimeracoder »

luckylion wrote: post #110
chimeracoder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. They're a huge presence in mainland Europe, especially Germany, where they're the de facto bank of choice for all non-European immigrants living in Berlin, Munich, etc.

Is there a specific reason for that, do they offer easy intl transfers or are very welcoming with support in many languages etc? I've vaguely known they exist but have only a few days ago seen one of their ads on public transportation (which doesn't say much, I'm not in the city a lot, but still).

> 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 legal address yet.

There are other ways to resolve this, but the easiest is "find a bank that will let you accept mail at the address where you're staying, even if you're not on the lease", and the only bank that does that is N26.

[0] I forget the German term, but basically

    Ms. Alice Foo
    c/o Bob Bar
    Baz Straße 14
    99999 Nowhere
    Germany

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#126

Post by madeofpalk »

Zenst wrote: post #73
jen20 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm aware of those two at least, but from people I know, not one had them and basing around that aspect of traction - sure that may well not represent the market, but at least I'm aware of them, unlike this N26.

That's so strange/interesting because pretty much everyone I know in London uses Monzo. Granted, my circle is like "young tech/agency workers in London", but I notice people using it at cafes and stuff all the time.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#127

Post by shadowgovt »

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.

Exactly. And it may have made them money outside of a Brexit context, and the calculus has changed post-Brexit.

This was the failure mode people opposing Brexit anticipated.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#128

Post by n4r9 »

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.

I live in the London area, have a Revolut account and am aware of Monzo but have never heard of N26. I agree with the above poster that their advertising cannot have been very good.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#129

Post by madeofpalk »

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.

> This is not the case with Monzo or Revolut

What? This is just wrong. On Monzo's site it says:

> As a fully regulated UK bank, your money’s protected up to £85,000 by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (or FSCS for short).

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#130

Post by threeseed »

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.

Actually that's now really how it works.

Customs controls need and are going to be imposed whenever there is no official agreement in place (and overseen by the ECJ) for regulatory alignment. And the ECJ oversight is a hard red-line for the UK.

Which means that it isn't a sliding scale. It's black or white. Either you fully align with oversight or you don't. And if you don't then you are hit with the full suite of custom controls.

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