What is PSD2 and what does it mean for me?

On September 14th 2019, new regulations around account security and access to account through third-party payment services as part of the revised version of the EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2) came into effect. You may recall receiving an email from us about this, letting you know that this new regulation means we’ll be updating a couple of our processes.

These changes are intended to help streamline everyday banking processes and protect your account’s security even more.

High-level rules and regulations can sound a bit confusing, so here’s a quick summary of the main changes that came into effect for N26 customers:

Two-Factor Authentication (also known as ‘Strong-Customer Authentication’) acts as an extra layer of security for your account. From now on, whenever you try to log in from a web browser or a device that isn’t paired to your N26 account, you’ll receive a pop-up message on your original ‘paired’ smartphone device, asking you to confirm that this sign in attempt is legitimate.

This means that even if someone gets a hold of your password, they won’t be able to log in to your account without first confirming it on the paired device. To avoid difficulties logging in, you should always ‘unpair’ any old devices or phone numbers from your N26 account, and then re-pair with the new one.

Since Two-Factor Authentication already happens automatically whenever you sign in to your account using the N26 mobile app, you don’t need to verify your login for this, although you should update your app to make sure you always have the latest version 3.33.

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The changes from PSD2 mean that you’ll now be able to let certified Third Party Payment Service Providers (TPPs) access your N26 account securely in order for them to carry out their services. This is called ‘Open Banking’. The types of services that TPPs might offer would allow you to pay at the checkout of a website that offers Payment Initiation Services, or to allow an Account Information Service to pull data together from multiple bank accounts you may have, and then aggregate these accounts in one place.

To help us provide the certified TPPs you may be using with the necessary data, we’ve partnered with Token.io to enable third-party access. You can read more about the partnership here.

To give you access to these Open Banking services, this means processing your personal data. To allow a TPP to access your N26 account, we send them the necessary personal data via Token.io. We’re updating our Privacy Policy to reflect the changes that PSD2 necessitates. Please note that we will only send your personal data to such a TPP if you explicitly request that.

If you’d like to read more about the PSD2 changes, visit our N26 Support Center for more information.

It’s important to always update your phone to the latest N26 app version.

Your devices are most secure when they’re up to date, which is why we’ll no longer be releasing app updates for older iOS and Android versions. This means support for iOS 9, iOS 10 and for Android 4 and 5 will end as of September 14. From then on, updates to the N26 app will only be supported on iOS versions 11 and higher (the standard found on iPhone 5s handsets, onwards) and also for Android 6 or higher. To the few customers still on older versions, we sent an email two months prior to ensure you have enough time to update your OS on your phone. Please refer to this email for more information.

If you have an older smartphone that doesn’t allow the latest app version, you can continue to use your N26 Mastercard for payments and withdrawals and log in to the N26 Web App from a browser to view your account, but you’ll miss out on new features, fixes, and products and also can not access the app anymore. Please bear in mind that you won’t be able to carry out transfers or make transactions using Web App. You will also need to confirm your login attempt with an SMS verification code when trying to access the Web App. We’ll send the SMS to the phone number displayed in the My Account section of the N26 app.

Due to the limited capabilities of these older versions, and evolving security requirements in banking and regulations, we can no longer support these versions. Security is not a static topic, which is why every new N26 app-store release is designed to give you the latest fixes and security updates along with better useability.

Our priority is to present all security features in a seamless, user-friendly way to fulfill the needs of both our customers and the regulator. If you experience any hassles or have any questions, please visit N26 Support Center for more information.

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