Years of regulatory action against German fintech N26 for its poor anti-money laundering controls may have cost the business billions of euros, co-founder Valentin Stalf told the FT, as authorities finally remove a cap on its growth. Financial regulator BaFin in 2021 ordered the online-only bank to limit its new client sign-ups to 50,000 a month, compared with the monthly average of 170,000 it was taking on at the time. The cap was increased to 60,000 last year and it will be removed from June, according to N26.
“The impact on N26 surely amounts to billions of euros because it lowered the company’s valuation as we were unable to grow,” he said. In its most recent funding round in 2021 — before BaFin announced it was taking action — N26 was valued at €7.7bn.
https://www.ft.com/content/dc580781-4c5b-4f8e-a632-65f6721d2ab8