N26 in trouble for money laundering

Neobank has long had problems with criminals using the bank's accounts. Two new searches now show the full extent.

The smartphone bank N26 has been struggling for some time with money launderers and fraudsters who hijack the accounts of its bank customers. Bafin even considered the problem so big some time ago that they put a money laundering officer in the Berlin-based bank's house.

This was supposed to reduce the problem, but new figures show that the bank still has to deal with money laundering - and apparently much more frequently than other banks. The Handelsblatt has asked the state criminal investigation office in Lower Saxony. There it says that since 2019, about every tenth suspicious money laundering report came from N26, the Wirtschaftswoche had previously queried the same in Brandenburg and had come to a similar conclusion.

Banks must report suspected money laundering to the Financial Intelligence Unit in Cologne, which is based at customs. This unit analyses the transactions and forwards them to the local state criminal investigation offices if necessary.

It is questionable whether the negative reports on the bank could torpedo the current financing round. The valuation of the fintech is apparently set to rise to more than ten billion US dollars, if everything goes smoothly.