“I think the success of digital banking is very simple. If you look at traditional banks, they have built up companies over the last 40 to 50 years and I think the difficulty is they are non-digital companies. They have a big workforce and it’s very hard to transform a company that has maybe 50,000 employees into a digital company.
“Also, the shift in user behavior has been massive. Ten years ago, you did your banking transaction on the telephone; today, you do it online or on mobile platforms. Smartphones have had such a strong evolution over the last few years. If you compare current iPhones with older generations, the difference in what you can do with the development language has obviously changed rapidly. We can now have a much better interaction with our customers through the smartphone, which is far more cost efficient than opening a bank with a physical branch. Therefore, we can offer products at a much more competitive price and a much better service,” explained[1] Valentin Stalf, the CEO of a European challenger bank N26.
The share of smartphone or tablet users in Europe who use their device for banking reached 47%, according to ING[2], and more than 70% of those who use mobile banking in the 13 European countries manage their finances better as a result of mobile banking.
The EU regulatory environment (in CEE, in particular) has been particularly progressive in ensuring a conducive economic and political space for innovation adoption (creating a highly competitive environment in the meantime). FCA and PRA have changed the conditions for obtaining banking licenses by lowering the capital requirements, extending the window for acquiring the necessary capital,
