About six years ago, the two Austrians Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal moved to Germany to give reasons. The original idea of offering a credit card for teens has now become a full-fledged bank with nearly three million customers across Europe. About a year ago Georg Hauer took over the Austrian agendas from the “Challenger Bank” N26.
Born in Waldviertel, he comes from the management consultancy and also has a global role at N26: He is responsible for existing customer marketing. For N26 this is a very responsible task, because the growth strategy is based on the recommendation: a satisfied customer brings the Jungbank on average three new customers. Hauer talks in the Trending Topics podcast with our host Martin Giesswein about the “Startup Spirit” in a team of 750 employees, about competition from the USA and happy customers.
N26 stands between 2 and 3 million users with a Unicorn rating. With customers you are top but how is N26 actually as an employer?
Georg Hauer: I live privately in Vienna and was one of the first employees of N26 who did not sit in the headquarters. I commute a lot between Vienna and Berlin, because the teams that I hold in Berlin are responsible. I personally think that N26 is one of the most exciting companies you can work for. N26 is one of the largest German startups and one of the largest European fintech. At the same time, the vision is much bigger. We want to become a world leader in banking. We want to solve people worldwide from bad and overpriced banking. We are still at the beginning of this vision. When I joined N26 a year ago, we had 350 employees, today we are well over 750. The company is growing very fast and the corporate culture is characterized by this speed.
Is there still a startup spirit for 750 employees?
Absolute. This is one of the biggest assets of N26. The startup spirit allows us to stay agile and react quickly to new customer needs. At the same time, N26 is not only a very fast-growing startup, but also a highly professionally managed bank.
If I want to have a job at N26 – what can I do?
The most important thing about new employees is attitude and motivation. As with other startups, it is important that an employee not only comes on board for one position, but for the big vision. The roles can change monthly. Most employees come to us because they want a new challenge each month.
Do you have employee participation programs?
For managers, we have certain participation programs. For all employees, there are many benefits, so it’s really fun to work at N26. A happy employee is a good employee.
Who is your biggest competitor – Revolut, George of Erste Bank, Holvi?
None of them. Why? The traditional banks are our pool of customers – they help us to grow. The Challenger Banks: We are market leaders in DACH and every attention that Challenger banks receive helps us in the end. We tend to watch the big American technology companies like Amazon or many players in Asia with financial products. So far, none of them has established itself in Europe and none of them has launched fully fledged banking products. But we know that these companies have the financial strength as well as the right customer understanding and can launch good products. We therefore want to be as good as possible and as fast as possible.
That is, you expect that Facebook, Google and Co. also offer banking products?
Apple and Google currently offer no banking products but payment services. Accordingly, they are our partner companies. N26 was the first bank to be involved in almost every country where Apple and Google Pay were launched. We are very strong when it comes to driving mobile payment.
Amazon could well spread to banking services?
Amazon has tried several times in the past to launch various banking products. None of them really got a foothold. But that does not mean that Amazon could not someday try to offer a Giro account. We as N26 have to observe these trends and be ready for them.
These companies have a very close relationship with their customers because they have different data from different revenue streams. How do you manage to generate revenue from your customers’ data?
We do not earn on the data of the customers. Our business model is similar to that of a classic bank. Even if a customer does not pay a single cent, we still earn on that customer. Why? Every time you pay at Amazon, Wiener Linien or Hofer, the dealer pays us a very small transaction fee of 0.2 percent. This is a very small amount for most retail banks, but our structure is so slim that these 0.2 percent make us very happy. Over the mass of the transactions which are handled every day we earn a very good money. With each new customer, we now earn a positive contribution margin.
Do you use customer data to make services better?
Happy customers are the most important marketing channel for us. We know that every happy customer brings us three new customers. If we manage to make these three new customers happy too, they will bring back three new customers. That is how we grow. That’s why we can grow so cheaply and exponentially.
And that without any retail banking.
Our promise is that customers do not come to us, even though we have no branches, but because we have no branches. No matter what problem you have: you never have to go to a store and never fill out a form.
Do you have three banking tips for private customers?
One should not consider his bank as a necessary evil. Many traditional banks confuse loyalty with the changeability of customers. However, clients often do not bother with their bank and forget that they pay unnecessarily much money each year for a very bad banking experience. My second tip: clear separation between personal and business expenses. This is a classic beginner mistake of founders, which can later bring problems with the financial. My third tip: regularly review the statistics at the end of the month. Sometimes you only realize how much you spend on certain areas.