- 21 October 2022
- Posted by: Cryptovalues
- Category: Companies, Cryptovalues News
It was July 2021 when N26, a Berlin-based banking group, announced that it would introduce crypto trading functionality within its accounts.
In January of this year a truly eloquent statement by N 26 co-founder Max Tayenthal astonished because it contained within it an explicit admission of guilt, but at the same time a willingness to remedy a mistake, which the facts have shown to be branded: “We completely missed the first crypto train!”
So albeit belatedly compared to what other banking institutions have done, N 26 decided to get on a runaway train and began a journey that resulted in the news of a partnership with the Bitpanda exchange to offer cryptocurrencies to its customers.
And so a new and important entry into the digital sector: the $9 billion European digital bank, which operates entirely online without physical branches and is also present in Italy, with more than half a million customers in our country, will provide access to about 100 cryptocurrencies through the bank’s app, with more to follow in the coming months.
The service will be called N 26 Crypto and will be offered at first to Austrian customers, whose feedback will be crucial for the gradual extension of the initiative to other countries.
About how the offering will unravel, the bank will allow cryptocurrency trading only as an “asset-building function,” meaning customers will be able to buy and sell tokens, but will not be able to transfer assets to other digital wallets, said Gilles BianRosa, chief product officer at N26.
“This obviously has a significant impact on security and fraud prevention,” BianRosa said, adding that the bank’s platform is a “nonanonymous cryptocurrency trading system” that has “strict eligibility criteria” in addition to existing customer knowledge requirements for customers to join the bank.
The agreement between the two major entities aims to simplify and facilitate cryptocurrency investments, making them affordable for everyone.
Important step forward for the adoption of digital currencies, put in place by one of the most important banking intermediaries in Europe and, in particular, for the younger generations that represent the majority of N 26 customers.
