Maximilian Tayenthal (Co-Founder & CEO) of N26 and Harley Miller (Principal) of INSIGHT talk about the big announcement N26 made today: the huge growth of costumers: "We've surpassed 3.5m customers", tells Tayenthal, "we have now 1.300 team members and a monthly transaction volume surpassing €2bn."

"The key of our business model is to understand the customers demand", explains Tayenthal. "If you think about the customers problem you don’t have to build hundred different products. They mainly want to receive their salary, store money, pay, get a loan, have a credit card … and that’s almost it."

The current growth proves the N26 approach: Most costumer growth is organic, adds Tayenthal, because they have been brought to N26 by friends and family.

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Dr. Diana Mantel and Paul Knecht

For our next session we’re shifting our focus to the UK. The Starling Bank calls themselves a digital, mobile-only challenger bank. Anne Boden is the founder/CEO and interviewed by Marco Rodzynek from NOAH Advisors. 

She describes the SMB banking market as highly concentrated with very few banks. Starling Bank operates as a new player in this market. The bank has two business models: One B2C business which is basically a retail business and another B2B for SMB on top of that.

But why did Boden found the bank?
„I spent a long time in traditional banking and felt that we need to build the technology – from scratch. So in 2014 I quit my job and did exactly that“ – with quite some success. Over 650.000 customers are using the mobile banking provider. „We are now part of the movement.“

Asked about the competition, Boden smiles and answers:
„We don’t know exactly how the big banks will react. Every big bank is now getting into board meetings and trying to figure out what to do. […] But I think, the bigs bank will decide whether they want to focus on distribution or on the backend.“

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Paul Knecht