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Lukas Weber
I started my career at N26 in Berlin in 2017, during the phase when every European fintech believed a banking license was the finish line. It was not. The license gave us permission to compete. It did not give us trust, profitable customers, or a reason for people to move their salary account.
I worked across product strategy and expansion, mostly on account monetization, card economics, and the messy local details that make "Europe" a terrible go-to-market abstraction. Germany, France, Spain, and Italy may share a regulatory framework, but they do not share banking behavior. The same feature that felt obvious in Berlin could land with total indifference in Milan.
After N26, I spent three years consulting for fintechs and banks on payments, open banking, and embedded finance. That work gave me a better view of the market than working inside a single company ever could. I saw ambitious startups underestimate compliance drag and incumbents underestimate how quickly distribution shifts when a better interface sits between them and the customer.
I write about fintech from the operator's level: interchange margins, card scheme incentives, fraud costs, licensing strategy, partner-bank dependency, and the hidden economics of "free" accounts. European fintech is not behind the US. It is playing a different game, with thinner margins, more fragmented markets, and regulators who can change the shape of a business model with one consultation paper.
I live in Berlin and spend too much time on trains between financial capitals. The best source calls still happen over bad coffee near airport gates.
Experience
- Product Strategy, N26
- Payments consultant, EU fintechs
- MSc Finance, Frankfurt School