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N26 will be leaving the UK

n26.com

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Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#181

Post by mrjohnes »

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…

They ran tons of advertisement on the tube, impossible to miss unless you're walking while looking at the floor. Just google N26 tube ads.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#182

Post by pzumk »

tnolet wrote: post #122
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?

Which is not a hidden charge because they tell you in their app and via email, also when registering an account.

N26 wants you to use their cards (or Apple Pay), and to be honest I have not been withdrawing any money from an ATM for 5+ months. I’m from Hannover, Germany.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#183

Post by jonathanbull »

speedski1 wrote: post #179
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.

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)

I highly recommend Monzo.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#184

Post by nailer »

dazc wrote: post #96
threedots wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Monzo and Revolut have over 3m customers compared to 1.7m for metro bank. Starling is over 1m. So plenty of traction all for the challenger banks.

How many of those users are using Monzo/Revolting as their main bank though? I have Monzo for small expenses when travelling in Europe but my main accounts remain with Barclays. I am guessing a lot of people do similar although, I concede, it's hard to find numbers that will corroborate this?

I don't know but I started using Monzo as a more convenient alternative to Barclays and as Monzo added features (and Barclays didn't) I switched my pay to go into Monzo. It's nor particularly hard to email your employer and let them know some new bank details, and the Barclays experience (particularly their slow balance updates) makes it easy to want to use something different.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#185

Post by wjoe »

Glawen wrote: post #163
_n_b_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

French banks are slow, but they provide good services. When i lived in the UK, i had only a debit card (maestro). If you wanted a mastercard you needed a credit card account where you needed to manually balance at the end of the month. Mind you this was 10 years ago, when the UK was Just introducing PIN code for every card transaction, a security feature found in France since the 90s. In France you get mastercard as…

This is pretty standard in the UK these days, most debit cards are Visa/Mastercard - 10 years ago most debit cards were Maestro or Visa Electron, although I still didn't have much difficulty getting a Visa debit card for travelling.

I found it very odd when I was in Germany that this wasn't the case, Visa/Mastercard were entirely considered credit cards, and debit cards used some entirely different system. I couldn't use my debit card to pay for a Berlin subway ticket, as the machines only took German bank cards.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#186

Post by gigatexal »

Nursie wrote: post #76
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)…

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

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#187

Post by gigatexal »

reubenmorais wrote: post #124
felixfbecker wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 phon…

The neobanks like Monzo or N26 are light years ahead of the domestic banks.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#188

Post by p0llard »

joshuaissac wrote: post #175
p0llard wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Among people I have talked with, and whose bank cards I have seen, in and around London, Monzo is far more popular than Revolut. Revolut does have the advantage that it lets users maintain balances in multiple currencies at the same time.

> Among people I talk with, and whose bank cards I have seen, in and around London, Monzo is far more popular than Revolut.

This has also been my observation. Multi-currency support is something I would like to see come to Monzo, although I'm not sure what regulatory constraints this would apply; my understanding is that most conventional multi-currency accounts (e.g. CitiGold) actually involve multiple accounts in several countries with the parent international bank guaranteeing free transfers between the individual accounts at market rates.

Re: N26 will be leaving the UK

#189

Post by Nursie »

speedski1 wrote: post #179
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.

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)

Monzo and Starling are the big two challengers, and worth a look.
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