N26 now has 500,000 customers for its bank of the future

By Romain Dillet for TechCrunch

Fintech startup N26 is getting more and more customers. The company reported 300,000 customers back in March. It now has 500,000 customers across Europe.

More importantly, growth seems to be accelerating as the startup announced that it was adding a thousand customers every day back in March. Now, around 1,500 customers sign up every day.

“More than 60 percent of our growth is still organic,” N26 co-founder and CEO Valentin Stalf told me.

But it doesn’t mean that N26 is going to stand still. The company plans to ramp up ads and branding efforts. The idea is that getting more customers through ads should also increase organic signups.

In total, N26 users have managed more than $5.9 billion (€5 billion). When you compare it to Revolut, the company currently reports $3.3 billion in transaction volume with nearly 780,000 customers on its homepage.

Maybe N26 has more active users than Revolut. Maybe Revolut users only use their Revolut card when they’re traveling abroad and not for local purchases.

N26’s main markets are Germany, Austria, France, Spain and Italy. People in dozens of other European countries can also sign up, but they won’t have as many features as German customers.

When you open an N26 account, you get a current account with a MasterCard. You can send and receive money with your German IBAN, and buy things with your card without any foreign transaction fee.

Over time, the startup has added more products to turn N26 into a full-fledged bank. You can save money, invest money, get a loan, control all your insurance contracts and more.

It’s a bit weird to see a bank adding new features as many banks have been standing still for too long. But that might be the reason why hundreds of people have created an account so far.