N26

Is N26 safe?

For everyday balances under €100,000, yes. N26 Bank SE is a German bank, not an e-moneyE-moneyMoney held as a stored balance with a payment firm rather than as a bank deposit. It is safeguarded, not covered by deposit insurance.More in the glossary app, so deposits are covered by the statutory scheme EdB, and it keeps most of its €10.6 billion of deposits in liquid assets rather than loans. The problems are on the management side. BaFin has fined N26 twice, capped its growth for more than two years and in December 2025 sent in a special monitor for the second time. Its capital sits below what the supervisor expects it to hold. We score it 58/100, below Revolut at 65.

How N26 protects your deposits

All N26 accounts in the euro area are held at one legal entity in Berlin. A customer in Paris or Milan is covered by the German scheme, not the French or Italian one.

What you hold	Covered?
Main account, Spaces, instant savings (euro deposits)	Yes, EdB, €100,000 per person in total
Joint account	€100,000 per holder
Temporary high balances (e.g. house sale)	Up to €500,000 in special cases, EdB says
Shares, ETFs, crypto bought in the app	No, not deposits
Flexible Cash Fund (money market fund, since May 2026)	No, fund units, not deposits

The Flexible Cash Fund, launched in May 2026 and opened to all account tiers in October, sits in the app next to savings but is an investment in a money market fund managed by Fidelity International. N26 says plainly that "a fund is not a deposit" and that any loss of principal falls on the investor, so EdB does not cover it.

The German scheme pays once BaFin declares a compensation case. Big German private banks such as Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank also belong to the private banks' voluntary fund, which adds cover well above €100,000. N26's 2025 annual report mentions only the statutory scheme, so plan on €100,000 as the real limit.

Capital: the weak point

N26 reported a total capital ratio of 20.8% at the end of 2025, a preliminary figure, and a leverage ratioLeverage ratioA bank's Tier 1 capital divided by its total exposures, without adjusting for risk. It is a simple backstop to risk-based capital rules.More in the glossary of 3.77%, close to the 3% minimum. On its own the ratio would look comfortable. But a special audit led the Bundesbank to set a higher combined buffer requirement, BaFin added extra own-funds requirements in December 2025, and the annual report says N26 fell below the capital guidance and breached its own early-warning threshold for core capital from October 2025. Its plan is to meet every threshold again by the end of 2026.

The cushion is thin partly because of history. The group's equity was €465 million at the end of 2025, after more than €1 billion of accumulated losses. 2025 brought the first annual profit, €1.6 million, against a €42 million loss in 2024. No major agency rates N26.

Liquidity is strong

Measure (31 December 2025)	N26 group
Customer deposits	€10.6 billion
Loans to customers	€3.9 billion
of which Dutch mortgages	€2.0 billion
Liquidity coverage ratioLiquidity coverage ratioA bank's cash and easy-to-sell assets compared with the money that could flow out in a 30-day crisis. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary	423%
Net stable funding ratioNet stable funding ratioA bank's stable funding, such as capital and retail deposits, compared with the stable funding its assets need over one year. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary	200%

N26 lends out little more than a third of its deposits and keeps the rest with banks, the central bank and in bonds. Its liquid assets cover more than four times the outflows the rules require in a 30-day stress. The risk, as with Monzo and other app banks, is speed: digital deposits can leave within hours if confidence breaks.

Five years under BaFin's eye

The regulatory record is the main reason for our score:

• May 2021: BaFin ordered N26 to fix anti-money launderingAnti-money launderingThe rules and checks that stop criminals from moving illegal money through banks, payment firms and crypto exchanges.More in the glossary and customer due diligence controls and appointed a special monitor.
• 2021: a €4.25 million fine for late suspicious activity reports.
• November 2021: a cap of 50,000 new customers a month, extended in 2023 and, according to press reports, lifted in June 2024.
• May 2024: a €9.2 million fine for systematically late suspicious activity reports in 2022.
• March 2025: a €15,000 fine for a reporting failure on a loan to an insider.
• December 2025: after a 2024 special audit found serious deficiencies in risk management, complaints handling and lending, BaFin ordered a package of measures, appointed a new special monitor, raised capital requirements and stopped new Dutch mortgages.

None of these touched customers' deposits directly, but repeated failures in control functions are what supervisors watch most closely.

How to bank safely with N26

1. Keep the total across your N26 account, Spaces and savings under €100,000 per person. Spread larger sums to an unrelated bank.
2. Keep a second account elsewhere. App banks can block accounts during compliance reviews, and getting a human on the line can take time.
3. Approve card payments only in the paired app, and never share the pairing or a confirmation code with a caller who says they are from N26.
4. Treat shares, ETFs, crypto and the Flexible Cash Fund in the app as investments outside the deposit guaranteeDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary.

How we scored it

Liquidity (82) and deposit protectionDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary (76) are N26's strongest factors: deposits are insured and the balance sheet is mostly liquid. Conduct (35) and capital (45) pull the score down because of repeated BaFin action and a capital position below supervisory guidance. For balances under €100,000 your legal protection here is stronger than at Wise, which ranks a little higher overall because it lends nothing and is not under formal supervisory restrictions.