Why Bankitalia takes the German N26 at its counters
Stop by Bankitalia to new customers for N26, the German mobile bank. All the details
Stop by Bankitalia to new customers for N26, the German mobile bank.
The Bank of Italy announced on Tuesday that it had banned the Italian branch of N26 from undertaking transactions with new customers. Furthermore, N26 has also been banned from offering new products and services, such as cryptocurrencies, to existing customers.
"To date, there are 750 thousand Italian customers of N26 to whom the neobank will not be able to provide new services, starting with those on the launch pad linked to cryptocurrencies", underlines Il Sole 24 Ore .
As stated in the press release, "the Bank of Italy adopted this provision following inspections, conducted from 25 October to 17 December 2021, which revealed significant shortcomings in compliance with anti-money laundering legislation".
"N26 has taken measures to remedy this deficiency", added the institute of via Nazionale. "The Bank of Italy reserves the right to assess whether the anomalies have been fully resolved before evaluating the revision of the current decision".
The bank has been present in Italy since September 2017 and, despite the provision, the operations of the accounts are not affected.
After the Wirecard scandal, German finance is therefore back in the eye of the storm. Already last September Bafin, the German Consob, had imposed a fine of 4.25 million euros on N26 for delayed reporting of suspicious activities in 2019 and 2020 in the anti-money laundering area. "The German supervisory authority has in fact, I imposed a maximum limit of 50 thousand new customers per month and 500 million euro of exposures in the context of mortgage loans ”, added Il Sole 24 Ore .
All the details.
THE BANKITALIA NOTE
In the press release, the Bank of Italy announces that “with the provision of 28 March 2022, pursuant to art. 7, paragraph 2 of Legislative Decree 231/07 and of the art. 79, paragraph 4 of the Consolidated Law on Banking, imposed a ban on the Italian branch of N26 Bank from undertaking transactions with new customers (through the opening of new ongoing relationships or the carrying out of any transaction, even occasional, with customers not already registered with the same date) as well as the prohibition of offering new products and services to existing customers (eg cryptoassets) ".
THE REPLY OF THE BANK
In return, N26 informs that in recent months "it has made important investments in anti-money laundering that have already led to significant progress in this area, both globally and in relation to the Italian branch". N26, at the same time, also noted that "an action plan is being implemented aimed at filling the gaps in this matter with regard to the Italian branch of N26, aimed at allowing the Bank of Italy to verify that the weaknesses on the money laundering are fully removed in order to be able to revoke the provision itself ".
WHAT IS N26
Founded in 2013 by Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal, N26 is theGerman mobile bank , designed to fit on the smartphone display. So the online bank has no branches or branches in the area.
Compared to traditional banks, which "have non-functional 'mobile' applications", N26 allows you to "open an account in 8 minutes with a video call, make instant money transfers and wire transfers abroad at the lowest prices on the market", explained the 'former country manager for Italy Matteo Concas at Ansa in 2017.
ALL THE NUMBERS OF THE GERMAN MOBILE BANK
Currently, N26 has 7 million customers in 24 markets: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal , Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.
In particular, banking services in the United States are offered by N26 Inc. in partnership with Axos Bank, FDIC Member.
The company's workforce is made up of 1500 employees located in 10 locations: Amnesterdam; Belgrade; Berlin; Barcelona; Madrid; Milan; Paris; Vienna; New York and Sao Paulo.
PETER THIEL AMONG THE INVESTORS
N26 has raised more than 800 million euros from the world's leading investors, including Insight Venture Partners, GIC, Tencent, Allianz X, Li Ka-Shing's Horizons Ventures, Earlybird Ventures, Battery Ventures, as well as members of the management board of Zalando and Redalpine Ventures.
In particular, Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir , has invested 10 million euros in the German mobile bank through his Valar Ventures.
THE TROUBLES IN GERMANY AND NOT ONLY
As we said, after the fine imposed by Bafin last September, the German financial supervisory authority has imposed a draconian limit on the growth of N26.
In fact, it prohibited the bank from acquiring more than 50,000 new customers per month until it had put in place "a real business organization".
Already in early 2021 BaFin had extended its oversight on N26 as the authority tightened controls following the collapse of the German payment firm Wirecard in 2020.
Furthermore, "last February four N26 executives were targeted by an investigation, again in the context of fraud and money laundering allegations", recalls the Confindustria newspaper.
THE EXIT FROM THE UNITED STATES
N26 was also present in the United States, where it operates through its subsidiary N26 Inc., based in New York.
However, online bank N26 initiated its withdrawal from the US in November, a sharp turnaround for once-high-flying fintech now under fire from German regulators. The bank said its 500,000 customers in the United States could use their accounts until mid-January.
“The US abandonment is unrelated to the customer growth limits BaFin has imposed in Europe, where N26 will for now only be able to accept less than a third of customers each month it has been. The regulator's ban did not extend to US N26 operations, ” reports the Ft .
THE EVALUATION OF N26
Finally, in its latest funding round dated October 2021, the bank had achieved a valuation of $ 9 billion. However, according to Il Sole 24 Ore "the difficulties in Italy seem to jeopardize this assessment and push away the prospects of a possible listing".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/perche-bankitalia-prende-a-sportellate-la-tedesca-n26/ on Fri, 01 Apr 2022 06:13:46 +0000.