N26

Like most neobanks, N26 uses 24/7 AI chat support as a first line of defense for customer queries. However, you can choose to speak with a specialist at any time by simply typing ‘live agent’ into the chat. Irish customers on a paid N26 plan can access phone support. On top of this, N26 has an extensive FAQ and article section in-app which covers many of the most common inquiries.

Opening an account with N26 is a straightforward process. After downloading the app, you’ll need to provide the usual information:

N26 has four plans - N26 Standard, N26 Smart, N26 Go and N26 Metal. Here is a summary of the key features of each plan:

All N26 paid plans come with up to 13 German IBANs - three IBANs for the main account, joint account and savings account plus up to 10 IBANs via N26 ‘Spaces’. You’re essentially getting 13 bank accounts with an N26 paid plan. Why would you want that? Having multiple bank accounts allows you to budget more effectively, as you can have different accounts for different types of transactions.

To make use of your 10 additional IBANs, you need to create ‘Spaces’ on N26. Spaces are N26’s take on sub-accounts, with each account or ‘Space’ having its own German IBAN. You could have separate Spaces for rent, groceries, subscriptions, holidays and much more. For example, when you go to the supermarket and purchase groceries, the money comes out of your groceries Space, not your main account or another Space.

Let’s say you’ve created a Space for a recurring expense, say, utilities or rent, and you now want to put those payments on auto-pilot. There are two ways to do this.

You can have a maximum of 6 virtual cards at once on an N26 paid plan. An N26 virtual card operates in the same way as a physical card, with its own card number, CVC and expiry date. It can be used for online shopping, recurring subscriptions or daily transactions by adding it to your digital wallet.

Whether you’re pooling money for a holiday, a group gift, or shared household expenses, N26 Shared Spaces is a great way to manage the process, without the need for a joint account.

Every N26 plan comes with basic insights where you can see a breakdown of your expenses by category as well as your total balance across different accounts. That said, the N26 paid plans provide access to a full suite of budgeting and automation tools:

Income Sorting allows you to automatically split and send your salary, and other income sources, to different Spaces within N26. If you’re planning on using direct debits linked to Spaces, then automatic Income Sorting is one of the best ways to ensure that your Spaces have sufficient funds to settle the transaction.

If Income Sorting is for automatically moving external money (i.e. money coming into N26), then ‘Rules for Spaces’ can be thought of as a way to automatically move internal money (i.e. money already on N26).

Round Up allows you to save on N26 as you spend, rounding up transactions to the nearest euro. For example, if you spend €3.50 on a coffee, N26 will round up that transaction to €4.00 and put €0.50 into a Space of your choice. You can then set a multiplier for your rounded up amounts - x1, x2, x3 or x5. Here’s how it would work in practise:

Using our example, if your multiplier was set to x2, the total cost of the transaction would be €4.50, with €1.00 of that being saved into a Space of your choice.

N26 allows you to set a monthly budget for spending. While budgeting features may seem like a ‘nice to have’, they can lead to real improvements in savings by promoting and tracking healthy money habits.

It’s possible to automatically top up your N26 account on a recurring basis. This can be a helpful way to ensure that your account is always sufficiently funded for scheduled payments, split bills or savings goals.

The savings rates on N26 Standard, Smart and Go aren’t overly competitive when stacked against other neobanks, standing at between 0.30% - 0.50%. You can discover the best savings rates in Ireland using our savings comparison tool. However, N26 Metal does come with 2% instant access savings, albeit at €16.90 per month - so you’d want to be using it for more than just savings to justify the price. You’d need to keep approximately €15,134 in an N26 Metal account to fully cover its monthly cost using after-tax interest.

One of the more attractive aspects of N26 is that they offer free worldwide card payments in any currency, at no cost to the customer. That means you can bring your N26 card anywhere in the world and pay using euros for free. No currency conversion fees, no transaction processing fees and no weekend markups. What's more, this is available to all N26 users, including those on N26 Standard. The only other neobank that offers this feature to Irish customers on a free plan is Trade Republic. 

However, if you wish to withdraw money in a currency other than euro, that’ll cost you 1.7% of the transaction amount (unless you’re on N26 Go or N26 Metal, then it’s free).

N26 Smart will likely be the most balanced plan for the majority of Irish customers. At €4.90 per month you’re getting:

Upgrading to N26 Go or Metal would be worthwhile if you foresaw yourself making multiple ATM withdrawals per month, both in Ireland and abroad, as well as spending a lot of cash outside of the EEA, UK and Switzerland. Plus, N26 Metal does come with 2% savings, opening up a good opportunity to pay for the plan itself using after-tax interest (~€15,134 deposit required).

N26 does offer discounted pricing for advance purchases of plans: