N26 client acquisition gets limited by BaFin

The German financial services supervisor, BaFin, requires the German Fintech star to limit the acquisition of new clients to 50,000 per month.

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This step is supposed to motivate the company to focus its resources on the fight against money laundering.

The Handelsblatt reports on a list of around 1600 accounts opened at N26 between May 2019 and July 2021, which appear to have been used for fake shops and fraudulent eBay accounts.

German financial services supervisor BaFin has extended its sanctions against Germany’s leading online bank. 

It will only be able to acquire “50,000 new customers per month” in order to reduce risks and concentrate its resources, BaFin announced on Tuesday.

The value of exposures secured by mortgages on real estate must also be limited to a maximum of 500,000,000 euros in all countries where N26 Bank operates. 

The special commissioner appointed by BaFin in May has his mandate extended to monitor the implementation of the measures.

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This comes when N26 is about to extend its services globally.

N26 has already announced that the customer onboarding process is going to see some major changes: “We want to make our company even stronger for the future. That is why we are currently focusing on further improving our service, our product range and our processes – because this will enable us to become an even better bank for our customers in the future.”

“This decision requires that we have to make temporary changes due to the strong demand for our banking products, among other things: We will initially adjust the number of bank accounts that we can offer new customers every month. This step can mean that, at least in the short term, we will not be able to offer an N26 account directly to all interested parties.”