Number26/N26 Mastercard/Account now for Irish Residents

Bob24

Bristol Helpless Stapler wrote: »

After receiving no response from any party I sent a follow up email.

Shane Ross department replied and cced in the NTA, Leap Card, CPCC and Central Bank:



Leap Card replied:




Will be interesting to see the reply from Shane Ross's office. Have to hand it to Leap Card they've been investigating for years now. Must be a very thorough investigation.

"to support the various IBAN structures used in other European countries" I thought IBAN was a standardised format?

Well done for not giving up. If at some stage you think any evidence that they have been aware of the issue (and the fact that it is illegal) for years is usefulll to force a move, PM me and I'd be happy to join in.

I have written track of email exchanges with them from over 2 years ago where I pointed out that they were in breach of an EU directive and its implementation into Irish law, and they repetively deflected as they are doing with you now.

user1842

Fred Swanson wrote: »

McGaggs wrote: »

That's all true, but try explaining that to an organisation that doesn't care. I was told that if I could give the sort code and old format account number they'd be able to sort it out...

Jesus wept!

Just to follow up here:
The practice of not accepting non-domestic SEPA IBANs for direct debits is against the law. It is a breach of the so called SEPA end-date regulation, Regulation (EU) No 260/2012, article 9, paragraph 2.
A official complaint on this IBAN discrimination needs to be made to the member states competent authority. In this case, in Ireland, it is the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (it used to be the Central Bank).
If the CCPC does not resolve the issue then the complaint needs to be escalated to the EU Commission (on their website there is a contact form).
The Commission will follow up with the member state and possibly commence enforcement actions against them for breach of EU legislation.
Creditors (companies offering direct debits) in Ireland have to obey the law.

user1842

Bob24 wrote: »

Well done for not giving up. If at some stage you think any evidence that they have been aware of the issue (and the fact that it is illegal) for years is usefulll to force a move, PM me and I'd be happy to join in.

I have written track of email exchanges with them from over 2 years ago where I pointed out that they were in breach of an EU directive and its implementation into Irish law, and they repetively deflected as they are doing with you now.

It is not even a EU Directive they are in breach of, it is a EU Regulation. A Regulation super-seeds all national law.
A Directive is transposed into national law (more wiggle room as they say).

Yggr of Asgard

The problems is that the CPCC does not understand their role and there are no penalties attached against companies not following the regulation.

It took me several fights with loads of companies to get them to accept a German Bank account number when SEPA Direct Debits came into effect and only once the Financial Ombudsman got involved the last one caved in.

There is not much you can do because in theory a company could simply say, sorry but we can choose who we want a customer and we don't want a customer like you (aka trouble maker). So unless it's a monopoly that has to take you as part of some public mandate they can kick you out. I had a company tell me outright, that if I would continue to make a fuzz I would no longer be their customer.

Unless the Government brings in penalties against companies not following regulations there is very little that companies are going to change.

It's a disgrace that a public organization like NTA are not complying with regulations but who is going to go after them?

nsa0bupkd3948x

Bob24 wrote: »

Well done for not giving up. If at some stage you think any evidence that they have been aware of the issue (and the fact that it is illegal) for years is usefulll to force a move, PM me and I'd be happy to join in.

I have written track of email exchanges with them from over 2 years ago where I pointed out that they were in breach of an EU directive and its implementation into Irish law, and they repetively deflected as they are doing with you now.

I'm going to wait for a response from Shane Ross's office and then decide who to contact next. I'm finished with both NTA and Leap. They are both either unwilling or too incompetent to implement this.

I'll probably send one last email to CPCC and then look into the EU commission route.

user1842

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

The problems is that the CPCC does not understand their role and there are no penalties attached against companies not following the regulation.

It took me several fights with loads of companies to get them to accept a German Bank account number when SEPA Direct Debits came into effect and only once the Financial Ombudsman got involved the last one caved in.

There is not much you can do because in theory a company could simply say, sorry but we can choose who we want a customer and we don't want a customer like you (aka trouble maker). So unless it's a monopoly that has to take you as part of some public mandate they can kick you out. I had a company tell me outright, that if I would continue to make a fuzz I would no longer be their customer.

Unless the Government brings in penalties against companies not following regulations there is very little that companies are going to change.

It's a disgrace that a public organization like NTA are not complying with regulations but who is going to go after them?

Then a complaint to the EU Commission is necessary. The Commission has the power to fine the member state.

Yggr of Asgard

user1842 wrote: »

Then a complaint to the EU Commission is necessary. The Commission has the power to fine the member state.

I know and my complaint against NTA/Leap is pending with them. I gave up and am using a credit card with the android app to top up.

However in my experience with the Commission (Latest with Virgin Media complaints) they are not at all useful when it comes to individual incidents.

Sure, there is hope if more people are complaining the Commission might start a real investigation and slap Ireland with a fine, but I think to be realistic the chance are very low.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

user1842

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

user1842 wrote: »

Then a complaint to the EU Commission is necessary. The Commission has the power to fine the member state.

I know and my complaint against NTA/Leap is pending with them. I gave up and am using a credit card with the android app to top up.

However in my experience with the Commission (Latest with Virgin Media complaints) they are not at all useful when it comes to individual incidents.

Sure, there is hope if more people are complaining the Commission might start a real investigation and slap Ireland with a fine, but I think to be realistic the chance are very low.

I know the EU Commission have actively investigated IBAN discrimination cases before.
Before you complain you need to make sure that you tell them you have already gone down the competent authority route as they might say to contact the competent authority first.

nsa0bupkd3948x

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Well we'll find out within 7 days.

Yggr of Asgard

Bristol Helpless Stapler wrote: »

Well we'll find out within 7 days.

Yes we will because I just did one too....

Yggr of Asgard

Ouch...

So my solvit just was acknowledged and my home SOLVIT was set to Germany, so the German Government Economic Ministry is now investigating this before sending it to the Irish Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation people.

Yggr of Asgard, creating international incidents....

Bob24

I figured I would join the party and raise a Solvit case as well. Lets see of we can pressure them with numbers ...

I attached emails exchanges with the Leap Card customer service back in January 2015 where I mentioned them being in breach of SEPA Regulation 260/2012/EU and they promised said they would address it within 3 months. Hopefully whichever EU institution reviews the case won't be too impressed with them knowing they have had that issue and done nothing for over 2 years.

The J Stands for Jay

user1842 wrote: »

Just to follow up here:
The practice of not accepting non-domestic SEPA IBANs for direct debits is against the law. It is a breach of the so called SEPA end-date regulation, Regulation (EU) No 260/2012, article 9, paragraph 2.
A official complaint on this IBAN discrimination needs to be made to the member states competent authority. In this case, in Ireland, it is the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (it used to be the Central Bank).
If the CCPC does not resolve the issue then the complaint needs to be escalated to the EU Commission (on their website there is a contact form).
The Commission will follow up with the member state and possibly commence enforcement actions against them for breach of EU legislation.
Creditors (companies offering direct debits) in Ireland have to obey the law.

I cc'd comreg (not hopeful) and ccpc in on my complaint. I also pointed them in the direction of the relevant SEPA Regulations.

I do find it amazing that they say they don't accept non-Irish accounts, yet the IBAN of their account receiving the payments begins with GB...

Chimichangas

Anyone have trouble using the app recently?
It didnt display transactions for March at first when I opened it. I never noticed that before.

I was also on a new android version....

Bob24

I am on iOS, but works find for me.

One issue I have is that sometimes when I change the spending category for a transaction the system changes it back automatically after a few days without asking me (I have notified the support team about it and they said they are making changes with categories at the moment which might explain it).

WarZoneBrother

I would just like a few questions answered regarding this number 25 account.

Im looking to open one and have the tenants in my house pay there rent montly to it via direct debit, if I open this account and give tenants my details is this possible? I also dont want to cause my tenants any hassle so wi they have any problems setting up the direct debit

Thank you

Yggr of Asgard

WarZoneBrother wrote: »

I would just like a few questions answered regarding this number 25 account.

Im looking to open one and have the tenants in my house pay there rent montly to it via direct debit, if I open this account and give tenants my details is this possible? I also dont want to cause my tenants any hassle so wi they have any problems setting up the direct debit

Thank you

Are you sure you are using Direct Debit? Direct debit would be something you set up and where you deduct it from their bank account not the opposite way.

I think you might be referring to a standing order in which your tenants have set up a standing order to pay you every month.

In principle they should be able to use your new N26 IBAN for a standing order.

If it's really a direct debit you did set up, than you will be out of luck as N26 as present does not allow a creditor (i.e you) to set up a direct debit from another persons bank account.

You can have direct debits deducted form your account but you can't instruct them to collect it from someone else (yet).

Bob24

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

In principle they should be able to use your new N26 IBAN for a standing order.

Just a caveat on this: at least Bank of Ireland doesn't let customers establish standing orders to non-Irish accounts (it has bothered me in the past and the ECB/CBI confirmed to me this is not mandatory as part of SEPA regulations). So a Bank of Ireland customer won't be able to pay money to an N26 account via standing orders (Permanent TSB does however allow it, and I don't know about other Irish banks).

BoI customers will of course still be able to pay the rent to an N26 account using SEPA credit transfers, but they will have to do it manually each month rather than having an automatic standing order (I assume as a landlord people prefer standing orders as it reduces the need to chase forgetful tenants).

bertie4evr

Has anyone tried to top up their Boon card with N26? I keep getting errors at the 3D Secure part.

prmcnamara

bertie4evr wrote: »

Has anyone tried to top up their Boon card with N26? I keep getting errors at the 3D Secure part.

N26 don't support 3D Secure and don't have any plans to, according to their tweets.

bertie4evr

prmcnamara wrote: »

N26 don't support 3D Secure and don't have any plans to, according to their tweets.

Well that explains that.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

bertie4evr

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Boon won't let you top-up unless you use 3D Secure.

Bob24

Is a merchant allowed not to processs a transaction if the card doesn't not support 3D Secure? I though it was optional and it would just skip the validation.

bertie4evr

Bob24 wrote: »

Is a merchant allowed not to processs a transaction if the card doesn't not support 3D Secure? I though it was optional and it would just skip the validation.

Boon's been nothing but a headache tbh! After trying my N26 card a few times I switched to the AIB card I hang on to. That failed twice, the 3D Secure page wouldn't load, and worked on the 3rd go.

Except it still charged me for the 2 failed attempts, so instead of a single €20 topup I've topped up by €20 3 times.

BuffyBot

Bob24 wrote: »

Is a merchant allowed not to processs a transaction if the card doesn't not support 3D Secure? I though it was optional and it would just skip the validation.

They have an option to process the payment, but they can also opt to only accept 3D secure supported payments also.

prmcnamara

Does anyone know if the contactless chips in the N26 cards are really weak or something along those lines? Whenever I try to scan them with my phone it doesn't work but if I use my Revolut card it works fine.

Bob24

I think people have mentioned having issues but it might only be some cards. I've been using mine for contactless transactions on a daily basis for the past month and haven't noticed any difference compared to other cards.

ED E

prmcnamara wrote: »

Does anyone know if the contactless chips in the N26 cards are really weak or something along those lines? Whenever I try to scan them with my phone it doesn't work but if I use my Revolut card it works fine.

They're Mifare Plus chips. Only NXP made readers can read them. Nowadays not all phones use their chips, so many cant read them. One Plus, Samsung, HTC etc mostly use Broadcom chips that wont work.

Its purely NXP being greedy.

prmcnamara

ED E wrote: »

One Plus, Samsung, HTC etc mostly use Broadcom chips that wont work.

That explains it. I have a OnePlus 3T. Though I thought I had successfully scanned it before.

Bob24

Bob24 wrote: »

I figured I would join the party and raise a Solvit case as well. Lets see of we can pressure them with numbers ...

I attached emails exchanges with the Leap Card customer service back in January 2015 where I mentioned them being in breach of SEPA Regulation 260/2012/EU and they promised said they would address it within 3 months. Hopefully whichever EU institution reviews the case won't be too impressed with them knowing they have had that issue and done nothing for over 2 years.

So based on the information I provided my Solvit case had been submitted to the Solvit centre at the legal department of the French commission for European Affairs.

I just got an email from them saying they have gathered all the information they needed and forwarded the case to the Solvit centre in Ireland for them to contact the NTA.

I will post an update once I hear from them again.

Is anyone else seeing progress with their case?

nsa0bupkd3948x

Bob24 wrote: »

So based on the information I provided my Solvit case had been submitted to the Solvit centre at the legal department of the French commission for European Affairs.

I just got an email from them saying they have gathered all the information they needed and forwarded the case to the Solvit centre in Ireland for them to contact the NTA.

I will post an update once I hear from them again.

Is anyone else seeing progress with their case?

Yep, I got a similar email.

Yggr of Asgard

Bob24 wrote: »

So based on the information I provided my Solvit case had been submitted to the Solvit centre at the legal department of the French commission for European Affairs.

I just got an email from them saying they have gathered all the information they needed and forwarded the case to the Solvit centre in Ireland for them to contact the NTA.

I will post an update once I hear from them again.

Is anyone else seeing progress with their case?

Wow, the French (how did they chose that one for you) are faster than the Germans which have yet to respond to me.

Bob24

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Wow, the French (how did they chose that one for you) are faster than the Germans which have yet to respond to me.

I think it was sent to the French one because of my nationality. But I was surprised as I wrote the complaint in English, I think I picked English as a communication language, and it has nothing to do with France (I reside in Ireland, the public organisation I complained about is an Irish one, and I clearly specified I want to establish a direct debit from an account located in Germany).

Yggr of Asgard

I think that might be it, it goes to the country of your citizenship first.

I will chase it up with the Germans because we are over the 7 days allocated now.

pasquale83

morning folks, just need to go to the UK soon and was wondering if it is more convenient to use the N26 card or the Revolut one.
I see the Revolut applies no fees for exchanging between currencies. what about our N26 bank? is transferwise only for bank transfers?
thanks!

Bob24

pasquale83 wrote: »

morning folks, just need to go to the UK soon and was wondering if it is more convenient to use the N26 card or the Revolut one.
I see the Revolut applies no fees for exchanging between currencies. what about our N26 bank? is transferwise only for bank transfers?
thanks!

Yes Transferwise is only for electronic fund transfers.

But N26 doesn't charge any fee for foreign currency card payments and gives you the MasterCard exchange rate. Overall it will be similar to what you get from Revolut.

Yggr of Asgard

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

I think that might be it, it goes to the country of your citizenship first.

I will chase it up with the Germans because we are over the 7 days allocated now.

The Germans are behaving like Germans, they told me they need exact dates of my correspondence, copies of any e-mails or letters and more details before they consider this.

And I'm allowed to say it that way, I'm part German.

Bob24

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

I think that might be it, it goes to the country of your citizenship first.

I will chase it up with the Germans because we are over the 7 days allocated now.

The Germans are behaving like Germans, they told me they need exact dates of my correspondence, copies of any e-mails or letters and more details before they consider this.

And I'm allowed to say it that way, I'm part German.

Even though I'm not German I think they're probably right to behave that way :-) It will make it clear you have made efforts to get things sorted and it is the NTA who had no interest in helping even though they were aware of the issue.

I guess I behaved like a German there as I provided the French with copies of my email exchanges before the even asked me ;-)

Yggr of Asgard

I did also have everything in the original complaint but they wanted copies of the actual e-mails. I provided that, together with a statement, that their webpage states the restriction on https://about.leapcard.ie/autotop-up:

Note: Your bank account must be a Republic of Ireland account where only one signatory is required, and the bank account must accept Direct Debits.

Within minutes I got confirmation that this has been send to Ireland.

I'm sure the people at Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation which are listed a contact details are having fun with all of these complaints about people not being able to use their German bank account.

Bob24

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

I'm sure the people at Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation which are listed a contact details are having fun with all of these complaints about people not being able to use their German bank account.

They must be wondering if there is an organised group behind these German account complaints all coming at the same time :-D

I'm actually wondering how seriously they take it. The NTA would deserve a bit of a beating given how long it has been and their complete refusal to engage on the issue, and they should be forced to implement a proper solution which works for everyone.

I guess since they have complaints coming from other countries they will kind of have to do something if they don't want to look too bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just manually entered our banking details into their system as a once-off solution to shut us up but didn't actually amend the website so that other people can start using non-Irish accounts.

Yggr of Asgard

Giving that the CCPC does not deal with individual cases (as per their last answer) those complaints lead nowhere, as these solvit are individual complains the NTA might very well just contact us and ask for our account details and do a manual entry/approval with a made up paper direct debit mandate.

Because in theory if the would need to stop offering direct debit for everybody unless they can comply, I can't see them doing that, so they are going to continue to do nothing until the possibly last moment and than do a manual workaround.

But at least now that there is at least some organization that wants to help for individual cases, we might see at least our problem fixed.

nsa0bupkd3948x

Received another response from the NTA: Slightly different angle but the same message.

Many thanks for your query and apologies for the delay in response. I wanted to ensure that NTA provided a comprehensive answer to your query.

It is the case that while we at all times endeavour to comply with the rules governing the areas in which we operate, there are significant technical challenges that are preventing NTA from complying with specific SEPA rules at this time. I also wish to put this answer in the context of our obligations under the legislation which governs the NTA, and in particular one of our core objectives which is to provide value for money. With this in mind when you had previously contacted us regarding the issue of allowing Direct Debits from non Irish Bank accounts, the matter had been at that point under investigation and consideration for some time and we had hoped to have a more positive answer.

Unfortunately, following consultation with our solution architects and providers we discovered that, as our back-office systems were built some time ago (prior to SEPA), there are existing technical restrictions in our systems which cannot easily accommodate IBANs. Although we have been able to implement a workaround for Irish bank account numbers (by performing a reverse lookup and conversion process on the inputs and outputs) to allow Irish account holders to use their IBAN to sign up for Auto top-up, we cannot use this process for non-Irish IBANs. As a result we have investigated alternative solutions as well as separately investigated converting the entire system to use IBANs. However, to date we have not received a proposal which could satisfy technical, security and financial integrity prerequisites and provide value for money. In fact, the cost for implementing partial solutions was so high as to be prohibitive. Consequently our focus has turned to a complete end-to-end solution. This would require a complete system rebuild and an extensive testing phase, the total cost of which would be substantial. When viewed in light of the very small percentage of customers that it would service, we do not believe that it would be a prudent use of taxpayers’ funds as a standalone development.

Instead as an alternative to auto top-up NTA is providing a mobile phone solution (the Leap Top-Up app) which can be accessed anywhere in the world and can instantaneously reload a Leap card as well as display the recent travel history, balance and ticket information. It works with any Android (v4.4 or later) phone that has NFC. NTA is also hopeful that Apple will allow access to the NFC chip on the latest iPhones in the near future. The growth in use that we have experienced on the Leap top-up app since its launch in January 2016 clearly indicates that there is a greater appetite for an on-demand reload capability that far exceeds the demand for auto top-up. Therefore it is likely that NTA will focus its limited resources in this area until such time as we have the funding to develop the next iteration of the Leap card systems to include the SEPA requirements (likely in conjunction with a number of other enhancements).

To be clear, it is our intention that a new iteration of our back office systems will comply with the SEPA requirements. However, in the absence of confirmed funding NTA cannot define any timeline for this to complete. I appreciate that this is not the answer that you are looking for, but it is simply the case that since we have an alternative available (the Leap Top-Up app), and given the significant technical challenges necessitating a substantial financial investment, whilst there is limited demand for such auto top-ups, we have to make the most efficient use of our available resources.

Didn't receive any response from Shane Ross's office yet.

In other news An Post got back to me and my N26 card works in Post Offices now. Have to say very impressed with how quickly I received a response from An Post and the fact they kept me updated regularly.

Bob24

Glad to hear about An Post.

While it gives interesting context around how they operate (assuming what they say is accurate as it contradicts their previous justification saying that that the problem was just with the ID verification process for non Irish IBANs), the answer from the NTA is kind of madness. In essence, they are saying "we know we are in breach with the regulation (and have been for years), but since the effort and money required to comply would be too high we have decided to postpone resolving this issue until an undefined date". The way they seems to describe EU regulation as an optional thing they can opt-out from if it doesn't suit them is a bit troubling (and that is not to mention that SEPA rules didn't come out of the blue one day, and that all organisations processing payments were notifier years in advance that they would have to get ready for it).

And interestingly the answer you received makes it seem like my assumption of them manually entering our IBAN details in their system as a quickfix to our Solvit cases was invalid.

Yggr of Asgard

Yup the hoped quick fix is out of the window with that answer.

The only way for them to comply would be to stop offering automatic top ups with direct debit payments, otherwise they would continue to be in breach of the regulation until they get a new system (which I actually don't think they will). They might just continue to chance it until someone finds a way to fine them (unlikely).

Bob24

I know it is just speculation and I am not sure it will come to this for such a small issue; but if I understand the Solvit process correctly, shall the NTA not provide a resolution for our cases the issue is supposed be escalated to the European Commission which is meant to confirm whether the public organisation (the NTA) is in breach of the regulation and start fining Ireland if it is confirmed.

Elessar

Interesting reply from NTA, all they've said is, yes we know we need to comply but it is too expensive to bother so sorry TTYL.

I think as Bob24 mentioned you should push it further with the EU.

Even more interesting about AnPost now accepting the N26 card. I'm one of the early adopters and have had the N26 account since 2015, but things like that have prevented me from moving to it as my primary account.

Is there anything else at this stage stopping N26 from becoming the primary account? Has anyone else been using it as their only current account?

Bob24

It is too early to make a definite final call as it has only been just over a month, but after that time using it as my primary account I have had no serious issue and I am fairly happy. The only banking problem I had (besides the one we knew about the NTA) is that one payment failed in a restaurant in France even though I had funds on the account (the terminal said "payment aborted"). It did work with another Visa card I have - but this is just one out of dozens of payments I made in Ireland and France and it is difficult to know if the problem was really due to N26.

Another minor issue is that they have a bug on their app/website whereby if you manually change the spending category for a MasterCard transaction before the transaction is cleared, the system will change it back to its default value and override what the user manually picked when the transaction clears. I have mentioned this to their support team and they said it is due to the fact that they are reworking categories (another minor annoyance I have noticed actually is that spending categories on the app/website and on the PDF statements are not them same which seems a bit inconsistent).

On the plus side, I have also noticed that SEPA standing orders and credit transfers are executed faster than with my Irish and my French banks (a credit transfer initiated in the morning is often credited on the recipient's account in the afternoon whereas my experience with Bank of Ireland or PTSB is that it would only arrive on the next morning).

Otherwise no problem to have my salary paid to my N26 account aside from the fact that it took a few days to set it up as HR apparently had to add a new bank identifier for N26 their system before they could use an N26 IBAN as a target account for payments.

The only loss for me is that I really like Apple Pay (which my French bank supports) which I was using on a daily basis, and I had to give it up to move to N26 as my main account.

I think some people have mentioned the lack of 3D secure authentication as an issue as some online services refuse payment if you don't have it, but I I made a couple of online payments and haven't came across the issue yet.

Yggr of Asgard

According to some press reports N26 has gained about 10,000 customers in Ireland, of which about 10 per cent are using its new subscription-based premium current account.

https://en.paykasa.com/mobile-first-banking-takes-off-in-ireland-with-10000-customers-for-n26/