Challenger bank N26 plans to expand to Brazil

Fintech startup N26 plans to launch its retail banking service in Brazil in 2019. The company announced the news on stage at MWC in Barcelona.

N26 has already announced that its next market would be the U.S. at some point during the first half of 2019. Brazil should launch after that.

Right now, N26 is available in 24 European countries, including all of the Eurozone, the U.K., Denmark, Norway, Poland, and Sweden, Liechtenstein and Iceland.

The company reached 2 million customers back in November 2018. N26 says that it now has 2.5 million customers. It has processed €20 billion in transaction volume since its creation in 2013, and customers currently hold over €1 billion in N26 accounts.

Eduardo Prota will be the General Manager for Brazil. He’s worked for Santander, Cielo and various startups. N26 will compete with another challenger bank in Brazil, Nubank. The startup already has 5 million customers and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

N26 also recently raised $300 million at a $2.7 billion valuation. It’s clear that the company doesn’t want to stop at Europe. Let’s see if N26 can reproduce the same success on another continent.