Bafin certifies digital financial institution N26 has “serious deficiencies” | EUROtoday

The smartphone financial institution N26 is as soon as once more in bother with the monetary regulator Bafin: Due to “serious deficiencies” in danger and criticism administration and within the group of the lending enterprise, the authority ordered an entire package deal of measures.

“N26 Bank SE must take appropriate and effective measures to establish a proper business organization,” demanded the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin). A particular consultant is meant to observe compliance with the necessities on behalf of the monetary supervisory authority.

According to the authority, each a particular audit carried out in 2024 and the audit of the annual monetary statements for the 2024 monetary 12 months revealed “that the proper business organization was not in place at N26 Bank SE”. The important outcomes of the particular audit had additionally promoted a personnel shake-up on the prime of the financial institution within the present 12 months.

Now, on the behest of Bafin, the institute is now not allowed to conduct new enterprise with mortgage loans within the Netherlands. N26 can also be now prohibited from securitizing claims from this enterprise, i.e. bundling them into marketable securities.

In addition, Bafin has set extra capital necessities to higher cushion dangers. The Bafin introduced that the orders have been in impact since December tenth and thirteenth, 2025.

The digital financial institution has already had bother with monetary regulators on a number of events: in 2021, Bafin accused the German start-up of doing too little to fight cash laundering given its speedy progress. At that point, the supervisory authority imposed a positive of 4.25 million euros as a result of N26 had submitted suspected cash laundering experiences late.

At that point, too, a particular consultant was appointed to observe the implementation of anti-money laundering measures on the Berlin firm. In 2024, N26 needed to pay an additional positive of 9.2 million euros in 2022 for suspected cash laundering instances that have been reported too late.

According to the most recent info, N26 is lively in 24 European nations and has 4.8 million revenue-relevant clients (as of the top of 2024). These are totally reliable and lively account holders who generate income.