Knab, the Latest Banking Initiative

Knab, (which is “bank” reading backwards) is the latest bank initiative by Alex investor bank founder Mr.  René Frijters and the Aegon conglomerate. 

Labeled “the bank of the future”, is in an online bank where a bank account + bank card will cost the customer €15 monthly.

The customer will have access to a digital dashboard that allows insight into all his payments, pension & saving funds and assets.  The customer will also have access to various digital aids, including a “red line application” that automatically transfers money from a saving fund to a current account in case of a pending deficit. The customer therefore avoid penalties. 

The customer will pay 1% up to a maximum of €2,000 annually for asset management.  Knab does not employ any sale advisers; a group of selected asset mangers have access to a podium on the kanb website, but are removed if their validation by customers is below par. The validation is shown in stars behind their name.

Knab piggyback rides on the new bank permission granted to Aegon. The name Knab has the K in front, which stands for Klant (customer). This is for sure nice marketing and branding, but does not hide the fact that Knab aims at customers that earn twice the average salary and want to manage their financial future themselves. Not exactly your average Joe. 

Knab wants to break-even in five years with a customer base of 100,000 customers. Frijters is hopeful to gain 250, 000 customers by that time.

 Will Knab succeed or go down the Icesave path? Time will tell...

IKEA Bank – Taking Advantage of a Weak Economy?

IKEA has silently launched its banking business. Its latest target is the Netherlands. Ikano Bank is fully owned by the Kamprad family, the founders or the IKEA outlets. 

The Ikano bank is not supervised by the Dutch National Bank and is therefore not part of the guarantee safety net that applies for current (and official) Dutch banks.

Ikano Bank is planning to allow consumer credit lines in its outlets.  According to the Chamber of Commerce, it encompasses interest free loans as well as loans up to 10,000 Euro.

According to its annual report, Ikano issues debit cards and is planning to issue credit cards in order to “provide a range of credit products”.

Since Ikano is not supervised by the Dutch National Bank, it resembles the IceSave structure. If you remember, the Icelandic bank folded and was not supervised and covered by the Dutch bank guarantee system.

Currently, Ikano is only supervised by the Swedish system, but not the Dutch one. Caveat Emptor!

As far as I can tell, it is taking advantage of the current economy. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, credit increase with 16 percent compared to the previous year.

Ikano started as a division of IKEA that manages real estate. In 1995, Kamprad established the bank, with one branch in Sweden. In 2009 the Ikano Group reorganized and clustered various financial activities.

Ikano Bank is currently a bank with branches in 16 countries Assets accumulate to Euro 203 million with outstanding loans of Euro 2.1 billion.  Income was reported at 342 million in 2011.

The bank is mainly active in Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, Finland, Russia and Finland.  

The question remains: is IKEA taking advantage of consumers not being able to pay for IKEA merchandise the ordinary way? In that case – IKEA might find itself be caught up Dutch courts like Wehkamp once was....