Ballooning customer bases and strong valuations are set to solidify confidence in fintech during 2020.
Co-founder and CEO of German smartphone bank N26, Valentin Stalf told Reuters that the challenger bank now boasts five million customers. The figure represents a significant increase from its 3.5 million users last summer, with European markets proving the most fertile region for growth.
The news follows an announcement from UK-based fintech Monese that it has reached 2 million users and is en route to become the country’s next unicorn. Customer growth tripled during 2019, with 9,000 new customers now joining Monese every day.
Norris Koppel, founder and CEO of Monese, comments: “ It took 42 months to get to one million customers and only eight months to reach today’s milestone. We started Monese with one goal - to provide financial freedom anywhere and everywhere. We’re beginning to expand this and are seeing huge popularity in big global cities across Europe.”
The London and Tallin-based startup, which targets expats and immigrants who typically struggle to get a traditional bank account, is currently in talks to raise another £100 million from investors. Should the negotiations be successful this investment would value the company at more than £1 billion.
While Koppel declined to comment to the Financial Times on the negotiations directly, he added: “it’s clear another [investment] round has to happen. What we are intending to do with our next raise is raise enough capital to take us all the way through to profitability.”