REX: N26 Hits 5M Customers Milestone
FACTS
- The German FinTech N26 hit the 5 million customers’ milestone (including 1 million in France). N26 deems that 2019 “turned out to be [their] most tremendous year of growth to date. According to their founder, Germany largely accounts for this growth.
- They managed to increase their customer base twofold in 2019, attracting more prospects in one year than in all previous years combined (since launch in 2015). They even won 1.5 million customers in just six months.
- N26 believes they owe these promising results to their consistent focus on enhancing customer relation. They say they committed 134,000 work hours to building their customer support.
- They now claim 1,500 employees across 80 nationalities.
CHALLENGES
- Growing globally. After they opened a TechHub in Vienna and entered the US, N26 further aims for global reach: they intend to enter the Brazilian market in 2021.
- N26 also confirms they intend to address 100 million users globally.
- Attracting investors. Considering these results, N26 may look into another funding Series in 2020, in hope that they would attract high enough investments to meet their ambitions.
- High-growth: a challenge. They partly addressed this challenge through their TechHub, which was first meant to anticipate security issues highlighted by Bafin. Yet, other challenges are entailed by their high-speed customer acquisition phase: ensuring a security level relevant to their image, keeping up their product innovation work and attracting talents.
MARKET PERSPECTIVE
- 2020 gets off to a great start for FinTechs in Europe. Substantial funding Series were announced over the past weeks by Lydia, Tink and Qonto.
- These announcements also stress a focus on internationalisation. The Chinese tech giant Tencent contributes to this evolution through massively investing in European FinTechs.
- First, a myriad of offers were launched and, following this initial phase, alternative players now focus on consolidating and expanding their business. Their model may achieve sustainability in 2020.