N26 announced on 19 November 2024 that it had recorded its first-ever quarterly profit, a net operating income of €2.8 million, in the third quarter of 2024, a milestone the Berlin-based neobank described as confirmation that its path to sustainable profitability was firmly on track. The company had previously broken even on a monthly basis in June 2024.
The profit followed a regulatory change earlier in the year: Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, known as BaFin, lifted the cap on N26's customer onboarding that had restricted the neobank to adding no more than 50,000 new customers per month. The cap, lifted in mid-2024, had been in place since BaFin imposed it in 2021 as part of supervisory measures related to deficiencies in the bank's anti-money laundering and compliance infrastructure.
CUSTOMER GROWTH AND DEPOSITS
The cap had been introduced after the supervisor identified weaknesses in N26's AML framework.
With the cap lifted, N26 reported that customer acquisition had accelerated. Customer deposits exceeded €10 billion for the first time in the third quarter.
N26 holds a full banking licence granted by BaFin and offers a range of current account, savings, and financial product services to customers across multiple European markets.
OUTLOOK
Management said it would build on the momentum, with plans to expand its investment offering and to launch digital banking for businesses in the coming year. N26 also guided to revenue growth of around 40% in 2024, to approximately €440 million.