LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - German online bank N26 said on Wednesday it will allow customers in Austria and Germany to trade stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), as part of the company's efforts to become profitable.
N26, which is being monitored by German financial regulators, will allow some customers in Austria to trade ETFs from Jan. 17, before expanding the product to include "over a thousand stocks" in coming months for customers in Germany and Austria, it said in a press release.
Following a boom in retail trading during the COVID-19 pandemic, various mobile banking apps, including Britain's Revolut, added functions for customers to trade stocks and cryptocurrency. N26 first introduced crypto trading for some customers in late 2022.
Founder and CEO Valentin Stalf said the majority of N26 customers had done the necessary verification and eligibility checks in order to be able to trade stocks.
German financial regulator BaFin fined N26 in 2021 over money-laundering control failures and imposed limits on the number of new customers it could take on. That limit was raised in October to 60,000 per month, from 50,000, the Financial Times reported.
“The scrutiny of regulators has been in a completely different level since we’ve seen the Wirecard scandal,” Stalf said, referring to the German payments company, which collapsed in 2020.
The CEO said N26 was likely to see "slightly negative" profits in 2024, but was aiming for profitability on a monthly basis in the second half of the year.
"Growth was much more important two years ago and now it's profitability and sustainability of the business model," Stalf said.
N26, which raised $900 million at a $9 billion valuation in 2021, is not planning further fundraising and is "well-financed for the next couple of years," Stalf said.
"Realistically an IPO will only happen in the next three to five years," he said of an initial public offering. (Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft Editing by Bill Berkrot)
