Italy’s Central Bank Bans Online Bank N26 From New Clients, Offering New Products Over Money Laundering Risks

The Bank of Italy has banned the local unit of online German bank N26 from signing up new customers, due to checks late last year that flagged money laundering risks, Reuters wrote Tuesday (March 29).

Italy’s central bank also said N26 would also not be allowed to offer new products and services like crypto assets.

The Bank of Italy said it adopted the measures “following inspections, conducted between Oct. 25 and Dec. 17 2021, which highlighted significant shortcomings in complying with anti-money laundering regulation.”

“N26 took measures to remedy such shortcoming,” the central bank added in a note, per Reuters. “The Bank of Italy reserves the right to assess the anomalies have been fully overcome, before considering revising the current decision.”

N26 also recently the news for pondering an initial public offering (IPO), which would happen at some point, though the company said it wasn’t really committing yet. Founder and co-CEO Maximilian Tayenthal said private markets had been “incredibly liquid.”

The PYMNTS report noted that liquidity is the “lifeblood” of any company, and whether if N26 ends up going public will remain to be seen based on rates.

See also: N26’s ‘Maybe’ IPO Boils Down to Timing, Interest Rates

The report also noted that as rates rise, earnings — or the prospect thereof — and top lines are adversely affected. Financial companies are faced with the impetus that customers might look to park their savings accounts or turn to some lower-cost loan providers to conduct their daily lives.

In addition, higher rates also imply that the discount rate, used as a kind of hurdle for returns for investors, could also go up, with a higher discount rate making money worth less in the future and adding to the overall risk, making it more expensive to borrow funds.

N26 would likely do well to tap funding sooner as opposed to later, due to the volatility going on, PYMNTS wrote.