I’m pretty sure they’re obligated to report to any member countries of the CRS where you’ve listed tax residence.
They say they don’t and given that my N26 account doesn’t appear on my account map, which is the report from the Portuguese central bank showing all accounts one has, they really do not report it
They said to me that they are required by law (German law?) to ask for it, so they just ask for it but don’t do anything with it
You can look at this for further information:
Your account isn’t held in Portugal so I’m not certain the Portuguese central bank would have the information, though your local tax authority will probably have it. N26 are legally obligated to collect and share this information the same way as any other bank does too. There’s lots of countries included in this such as the US, China, all of Europe etc.
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I got asked to reverify. I have asked them to close my account and told them why,
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Am I right in thinking N26 has about 3.5m accounts vs 3m for Monzo? Is Monzo growing at a faster rate?
N26 has been around a lot longer and has significantly more presence around the world than Monzo so they’ve got a much larger audience. Monzo is almost definitely growing faster though.
It was big news last tax season that of all fintech banks none had reported their Portuguese clientes to anyone here in Portugal so people had to report it themselves, manually. I’m afraid you’re wrong that they do any reporting
Banks have to report bank account information to the tax bodies where they are based who then share the information with each other - it’s called Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI).
Portugal is on the list so will get this information, even though the banks don’t tell Portugal directly
See
Portuguese bank secrecy laws mean that CRS info for accounts with a balance less than 50k is sealed and can’t be used without judicial order as part of an investigation
This was debated in parliament a couple of months ago and it’s unrelated to report the accounts that exist and their holder to the central bank
Expecting 10 million customers by end of 2020, and 4.5 - 5 million by the end of this year. https://t3n.de/news/n26-noch-kein-boersengang-10-1202672/
I think the article says there’s a possibility for 10m customers by end 2020 rather than an expectation.
But doubling within a year by putting on 5m customers - that’s a big ask, even if the US is in play!
There’s now a promo code circulating for euro accounts that gives 20€ just for opening an account with them. Seems a bit desperate
You know Monzo ran the promotion to sign up for a fiver a while back…
So a quarter of 20?
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More to the point that if someone is going to flag a bank as desperate for offering an incentive for opening an account then you’re tarnishing all banks.
An incentive is an incentive. 
Edit: Oh, and one more thing… Starling haven’t offered an incentive to open an account (so guessing they aren’t desperate 
)
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We’ve had a Belgian campaign recently (for a legacy bank) where the referral bonus was €50.
Can’t make up for difference in service, though!
It’s nothing to do with desperation. It’s a simple bribe.
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£175 from some banks here iirc at the moment.
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I’m trying to close my N26 account at the moment. I don’t understand why after 1 year you still cannot save payees and still can’t have a UK IBAN
Weirdly they asked me to confirm my UK IBAN to close the account despite the lack of IBAN being one of my reasons to close the account
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yep. HSBC have that offer on pretty regularly.