… continuing the story.
February 5 . . . the payment did not go through. I had to find a way to pay this damn one-euro tax – forthwith – upon financial penalty . . . I had to find a bank micro-entrepreneur friendly . . . It just takes a few minutes to open a bank account online with N26. Great!
8 minutes later… No, 8 days later, I could finally give it another try; a real one this time (see A “real” bank – N26). I had indeed received my compatible smartphone
, one of the N26 eligibility criteria, two days earlier and I was ready to go through the four-step process to open a free business bank account for freelancers.
Start loving your bank. Open your N26 account in 8 minutes.N26
Putting these events in their context
“Wait a second, why did you wait for 2 days, if you were such in a hurry?”
As alluded to in the previous post of this mini-series, back then I was still using a phone under BlackBerry OS 7.1. Moving to Android – directly to Android 9 Pie, as a matter of fact – was not that straightforward; no matter how intuitive this operating system might be. Besides, I also had to learn how to use my new phone. Remember, I am the kind of person – probably the last of my kind – who does actually read Instruction Manuals (see How to podcast?).
On top of that, I had planned to spend two weeks with my wife – for Valentine’s day and her name’s day. She was living in Germany at the time, but as explained in More taxes, upon my return from the USA, given our financial situations, I had no other option to go back and live in my parents’ home – in France! A complicated story that was not easy every day – despite our experience on that matter. At least, we were now leaving on the same continent! Anyway, as soon as I received my phone, I headed to Germany. The idea was to study the 55-page Instruction Manual and to have a quick idea on how to use Android before moving to the second step, i.e. download the app (see A “real” bank – N26).
Step 2 and 3 out of four
Reading the manual was one thing, grasping the ins and outs of Android was a different story. Anyway, I knew enough to download the N26 App and to use the camera (required for the identity verification step). For now, it was all I needed.
I had already provided all the info (email, phone number, address, nationality, etc.) a few days earlier, so I continued from there. I downloaded the App, followed the instructions – basically, take pictures of my ID (on both sides, please) – and that is it. I had finalized the process! It was 11:55 am and I started to feel some relief.
All I had to wait now was for a confirmation message (and my debit card in two weeks from now).
We cannot open your N26 account.
Above is the subject line of the email I received on February 14 at noon:
Hello Alexandre,
We’re sorry, but unfortunately, we can’t offer you an N26 account.
As a banking institution, we must follow strict legal regulations for each account opening.
We are currently unable to give you more information on this subject for legal reasons and our Customer Service will not be able to assist you further.
Thank you for your understanding and your interest in N26.
N26
To be continued…
1 As you may know, I did the first step (i.e. provided all the info on their website) on February 5, but could not go further (i.e. to download the N26 app – step 2) because I did not have a compatible smartphone
at the time (see A “real” bank – N26). ^
2 See When all the crap hits the fan at the same time…. ^