腾讯携手安联投资柏林数字零售银行

N26, the German online bank and a flagship start-up in the Berlin fintech sector, has raised $160m from a group of investors led by Tencent, the Chinese internet and social media group, and Allianz X, the insurance group’s digital investment unit.

作为柏林金融科技领域旗舰初创公司的德国网上银行N26，从一批投资者筹集了1.6亿美元，牵头这些投资者的是中国互联网和社交媒体集团腾讯(Tencent)以及保险集团安联(Allianz)的数字投资部门Allianz X。

The funding round marks the latest vote of confidence in Berlin’s technology sector, which has seen a flurry of big investments and stock market listings over the past year.

本轮筹资是对柏林科技行业投下的最新一张信心票，在过去一年时间里，该行业见证了一连串大手笔投资和在股市上市。

According to data released by EY yesterday, Berlin-based start-ups raised €2.97bn in 2017, up from €1.1bn the previous year. Among European tech hubs, only London was more successful, with start-ups based in the UK capital drawing €4.88bn in investment last year.

安永(EY)昨日发布的数据显示，2017年总部位于柏林的初创公司共筹集了29.7亿欧元，远高于上一年的11亿欧元。在欧洲科技枢纽中，只有伦敦比柏林更成功，去年总部位于伦敦的初创公司共筹集48.8亿欧元。

Valentin Stalf, co-founder and chief executive of N26, said the deal with Tencent and Allianz X was “one of the biggest funding rounds for a fintech in Europe and the biggest ever for a German fintech”. He described the two new investors as “powerhouses in their respective fields of financial and internet services”.

N26的联合创始人和首席执行官瓦伦丁•施塔尔夫(Valentin Stalf)表示，与腾讯和Allianz X的交易是“欧洲金融科技领域最大一轮筹资之一，也是德国金融科技公司有史以来获得的最大筹资”。他把两家新投资者形容为“活跃于各自所在的金融和互联网服务领域的强大提供商”。

Mr Stalf said the company planned to use the latest investment to accelerate its expansion — N26 is due to launch in the UK and the US later this year — and to invest in product development. The company, which was awarded a German banking licence in 2016, has raised $215m to date. It has not revealed the size of the stake taken by outside investors, nor the overall valuation of N26.

施塔尔夫表示，该公司计划利用最新一轮投资来加速推进扩张——N26即将在今年晚些时候登陆英国和美国——并投资于产品研发。该公司于2016年获得了德国银行业务牌照，迄今筹集了2.15亿美元。N26并未透露外部投资者的持股规模，以及该公司整体估值。

Founded in 2013, N26 is a digital retail bank that allows customers to conduct payments and other banking transactions through its mobile phone app. It has 850,000 customers in 17 European markets, and claims to sign up more than 2,000 new customers every day.

N26创办于2013年，是一家数字零售银行，让客户通过手机App来完成支付和其他银行交易。该公司在17个欧洲市场拥有85万客户，声称每天签约逾2000名新客户。

Unlike traditional retail banks, N26 operates no branch network, giving it a lower cost base than rivals. Despite the recent rapid growth, the company has just 380 employees.

与传统零售银行不同，N26没有分行网点，因而成本基础低于竞争对手。尽管近年增长迅速，但该公司只有380名员工。

N26 said in a statement yesterday that it planned to personalise its offering to clients further through the use of artificial intelligence, adding that AI “will allow the bank of the future to become more adaptive to customers’ needs and solve the problems in a way that is currently missing among traditional retail banks”.

N26昨日在一份声明中表示，计划通过使用人工智能来为客户提供更进一步的个性化服务，并补充称，人工智能“将使未来的银行变得更善于适应客户的需求，并以目前传统零售银行所欠缺的方式来解决问题”。

Solmaz Altin, chief digital officer of the Allianz group, said in a statement: “N26 is a clear frontrunner in mobile banking. N26’s banking platform is modernising traditional business models of financial services.”

安联集团首席数字官索尔马兹•阿尔廷(Solmaz Altin)在一份声明中称：“N26是移动银行领域的明显领先者。N26的银行业务平台正使传统的金融服务商业模式现代化。”

The German group contributed a quarter of the funding, investing about $40m, a person with knowledge of the matter told the Financial Times.

一名知情人士向英国《金融时报》表示，这家德国集团贡献了本轮筹资的四分之一，投资约4000万美元。

Lin Haifeng, managing partner at Tencent Investment, said: “We see the increasing demand of digital banking products and services in European markets and we are delighted to be a strategic investor of N26 to build a long-term partnership and participate in their growth.”

腾讯投资(Tencent Investment)管理合伙人林海峰表示：“我们看到欧洲市场对数字银行产品和服务的需求日益增长，很高兴成为N26的战略投资者，建立长期的合作伙伴关系，并参与该行的成长。”

Additional reporting by Olaf Storbeck in Frankfurt Olaf Storbeck法兰克福补充报道