N26 Digital Bank Opens Crypto Trading Amid Declining Market

Trisha Kae Andrada, Tech Times 20 October 2022, 12:10 pm

N26, a digital banking firm in Europe, announced Thursday, Oct. 20, the launch of its cryptocurrency trading business, with Austria as its first market.

N26 Crypto Service in Austria

The N26 Crypto service, which will initially support 100 tokens like Bitcoin and Ether, will soon be made accessible to N26's Austrian customers. Over the following six months, the company will distribute the service to consumers in additional markets, ultimately growing its token offering to a total of 194 coins.

In order to conduct a transaction, customers will choose a cryptocurrency and enter the desired amount to purchase or sell. As soon as they finish their order, the token they picked out will show up in their primary account with the money they just spent.

The bank confirmed that customers might "drag and drop" funds between their primary bank account and their crypto account.

N26's transaction charge for buying and selling crypto is 2.5%, except for Bitcoin, which has a lower fee of 1.5%. Trading fees for paid Metal accounts are 1% on Bitcoin, and 2% on all other tokens, and the service costs €16.90 ($16.54) per month for subscribers.

Bitpanda, Austrian crypto and stock trading app whose investor roster includes N26 backer Peter Thiel, provided the technology for the function and will earn a commission on trades executed via the bank. N26 has announced future ambitions to enable trading in other asset classes.

N26 Joined the Crypto Rush Late

N26, situated in Berlin, is a relative latecomer to the crypto craze.

Both PayPal and Revolut, two fintech competitors, have given their customers the option to purchase and sell digital assets for some time now, and both Visa and Mastercard, two payment industry giants, also offer their customers cryptocurrency and so-called "Web3" services. Nubank, a digital bank in Brazil, introduced its own cryptocurrency, named Nucoin, on Wednesday.

N26's chief product officer Gilles BianRosa told CNBC that their users are tremendously interested in crypto. The demand for cryptocurrency is high even in a depressed market.

2022 Is a Terrible Year for Crypto Businesses

The timing of N26's crypto venture could have been better. This year has been a disaster for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and other tokens as investors left the market in anticipation of increasing interest rates and liquidity concerns.

N26, which has a banking license in the European Union (EU), is testing the waters of crypto as the company believes it is more than "just a fad" even though traditional financial institutions have avoided the sector out of worry for its rapid fluctuation and possible participation in the fraud.

After the cryptocurrency market lost $2 trillion this year, authorities have tightened their stance on the industry, so this change might make them unhappy.

In particular, the European Union has been working to rein in the crypto "Wild West" with new regulations that are anticipated to strengthen consumer and institutional safeguards for digital assets. Due to suspected flaws in its fraud protection systems, BaFin, the German financial authority, has already put limitations on N26's expansion.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Trisha Kae Andrada