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> Monzo, Revolut and Monese

I heard it said that these aren't actual "banks" per se ... whereas N26 is, and is regulated as such.

Just another reason to feel a bit more secure.

Though the additional services Revolut offer have piqued my interest. In particular crypto payments.

The -ve with N26 is that they don't offer much beyond standard current a/c services. No loans or savings for instance, or overdraft, which is all totally fine for what I used it for. I'll fall back on the B&M bitches for the harder stuff.




> No loans or savings for instance, or overdraft

They offer all of these in Germany. Afaik extending credit lines is regulated differently across the EU and it might take time to scale it out. I don't understand why they don't offer savings and investments in more countries though, given they are only an intermediary.


> Monzo, Revolut and Monese

> I heard it said that these aren't actual "banks" per se

IMHO, the test of an "actual bank" in the UK is if the service is regulated by the FCSA, and your money protected (up to £85K) by that.

You can check here https://protected.fscs.org.uk/tools/check-your-money-is-prot...

But the tl;dr is: Monzo is a bank, Starling is a bank. But Revolut is not a bank. Monese is not a bank.

N26 is not UK-based, so this test does not apply. But it does seem to be a bank by German standards:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N26_(bank)#History "In July 2016 it rebranded as N26 Bank, having received its own banking license from BaFin."

The parent comment indicates that N26 operates under a similar deposit guarantee: "because N26 are German all savings up to €100k are insured by the German government."




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