App-Only Bank Number26 Doubles Customers

German app-based bank Number26 has doubled its customers in just 5 months, according to the company’s chief executive Valentin Stalf.

At Money2020’s Europe conference in Copenhagen, Stalf announced 60,000 new customers in the first quarter of this year alone.

Although the company has yet to post significant numbers, its rapid growth shows the demand for innovative financial technology products.

Number26 even made the Fintech 50 list for this year, which may explain its boost in popularity.

Number26 is joining only a few other firms is offering strictly app accessible banking.

Other fintech companies like Atom Bank, Mondon and Robinhood are offering app-only financial services, often times for free.

The traditional financial sector has had some difficulty in keeping up with these so called “neobanks”.

The explosion of the internet and new and more accessible technologies has allowed almost anyone with a computer to create a new product or service with just a few keystrokes.

Whether or not app-only banks like Number26 will remain viable is unknown at this point, but their popularity still continues to grow.

Stalf had this to say about the emergence of fintech companies like Number26 and what they represent to the financial services sector on the whole: “…we’ve spent a lot of time on how can you be more efficient in building or doing banking in general. If you look at a traditional bank they’ve got a big branch network and they’re using technology out of the 1980s. We tried to make a backbone, together with the app that we have, that is much superior to the traditional banks and give you a product at a free price for the base account and then be much superior in the things we build around that.”