Austria: N26 enables trading with cryptocurrencies

The digital bank N26 is under pressure. Not only the increasing regulation by supervisory authorities is slowing down the company’s growth, but also the strong competition, some of which have a much broader offering. At least in Austria, N26 is now catching up and offering trading in cryptocurrencies.

Offer only for Austria

N26 founder Valentin Stalf had already held out the prospect of trading with cryptocurrencies on the occasion of the presentation of the quarterly figures at the beginning of October. For the first time, there had already been talk of a crypto option at the beginning of the year. However, N26 faces some legal and technical difficulties in this area. For example, there is a lack of uniform regulation of cryptocurrency trading in the EU, which means that different requirements have to be met in different member states. This, in turn, means that ultimately each has to find its own technical solutions. Stalf therefore spoke of initially wanting to become active in this area in a few core markets. A corresponding offer is now being launched in Austria. No start date has yet been given for Germany.

Great interest in crypto trading

In the run-up, the company had conducted a survey among 16,030 customers from Austria, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. 40 percent of respondents said they were already trading cryptocurrencies or at least interested in doing so. N26 thus has reason to believe it is moving into a lucrative market – although inflation may have dampened most people’s investment spirits in Austria as well.

In any case, the offering will be large. For example, N26 is starting with 100 tradable cryptocurrencies and is already planning to expand the offering by 94 to a total of 194 currencies in the coming months. In order to participate, verification of one’s identity is required.

Cooperation with Bitpanda

Crypto trading is made possible by a cooperation with Bitpanda. Although users buy the currencies directly via the N26 app, the keys that enable access to them are held by Bitpanda. Overall, N26 attaches importance to making access as low-threshold as possible. Thus, purchase fees are debited directly from the checking account, an additional registration in another application is not necessary, and the app of the online bank does not have to be left at any time. However, the chosen design also has tangible disadvantages for users: they cannot freely dispose of their cryptocurrencies. N26 has designed the trading as a closed system that the coins cannot leave. This means that it is not possible to sell the acquired cryptocurrencies to interested parties at freely negotiable prices.