N26, the German online bank with 7 million customers in 24 countries, is ready to enter the world of cryptocurrencies. Co-founder Max Tayenthal admits the lag and that he should have prioritized the expansion of the bank’s services.
N26 and the mistake of underestimating crypto
According to reports, the co-founder of N26, the €7.8bn fintech, appears to be re-evaluating the company’s strategy that shelved the decision to include Bitcoin and cryptocurrency offerings.
In essence, Max Tayenthal confirms that N26’s geographic expansion by “putting flags up” in more countries, rather than prioritizing the expansion of its services related to cryptocurrencies, has not proven to be a winning strategy. Here are his words:
“Should we have built trading and crypto instead of launching in the US? In hindsight, it might have been a smart idea”.
N26 missed the cryptocurrency boom as it rushed to go global too quickly. A move that now sees the fintech company close its US operations, after already exiting the UK in the early 2020s.
N26 and plans for cryptocurrency trading in 2022
Faced with the admitted mistake, N26 seems to want to make up for it in 2022 with a new project that will feature cryptocurrency trading and, later, stock brokerage.
No details have been revealed yet, except that Tayenthal says he is ready to expand the range of N26 products and services from now on.
Nothing like its UK-based competitor Revolut, which offers banking services that already involve cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payments.
Back in late September 2021, the fintech company announced the likely launch of its own native token. A project put under approval by UK regulators that still, after months, has not received any official confirmation, but not even denials.
The results of crypto certificates on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange, or Börse Frankfurt, revealed a few days ago that in Germany, also home to N26, crypto certificates (or warrants) are the most traded products in 2021.
Their trading volume exceeded 18.4 billion euros. This makes crypto certificates even more popular products in Germany, despite the small decline compared to 2020, which had a trading volume of EUR 21.1 billion.
Deutsche Börse Group runs the Börse Frankfurt which is the country’s leading stock exchange. Its interest in crypto only exploded last summer with the acquisition of a majority stake in Crypto Finance AG, the Swiss company that provides cryptocurrency products and services.
The acquisition was only completed on 15 December 2021, with the aim of creating a regulated European ecosystem for cryptocurrency investment, trading and post-trading.
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