The pro-independence bank 11Onze is on the way to failure, according to the figures for capturing potential clients harvested until last Friday. Despite having been warming up engines and social networks since mid-August about the launch of the app through which it will operate, the demand for its first 5,000 accounts does not even reach half of the total.
The fintech has more than 10,000 subscribers to its online community under free subscription, but on Friday it was a week since the announcement that they could start queuing virtual to be the first to have an 11Onze account and, by mid-morning, the requests barely exceeded 2,050, as verified by elEconomista.
And that the call was launched among those most faithful to the project and specifically on September 10, at the gates of the Diada, an emblematic date for independence. It is also noteworthy that in the virtual world, even more than in the physical world, the best results are harvested in the first days after a launch.
It will be necessary to see if the novelty unveiled this Thursday has any incentive effect in the coming days: that the app will start working on October 1, the date on which the illegal referendum on the independence of Catalonia in 2017 took place.
Other factors that influence this weak takeoff are the lack of sponsors among the institutional independence movement -from the parties to the most influential sovereign entities-, as well as the opacity regarding its financial guarantees, since it has not even revealed the countries from which that will issue the accounts -it affirms that the client will be able to choose between several European banking entities-, and the business conglomerate on which the bank is based is lost in a diffuse network between several countries, which contrasts with the fintech’s proclamations of transparency .
political tool
11Onze has great aspirations, as stated by the Unitat per la Independència (UXi) association and the president of the bank, James Sène, a Senegalese who has lived in Barcelona for 30 years, but it seems that they will remain far from reality.
UXi defends achieving independence unilaterally and one of its leaders, Carles Santacruz, reproaches ERC, Junts and the CUP on social networks for not making it effective.
On the association’s website, they state that 11Onze is a “necessary, useful, efficient and democratic tool that is the key to building the independence of Catalonia.” In fact, this is the second time they have tried it, because two years ago, on October 1, 2019, they already presented a Catalan bank project, The FED, which never saw the light of day, and which is the seed of the new , as can be seen in the name of one of the companies linked to 11Onze.
For his part, Sène, assures: “We come to compete, not to act as a troupe, but to occupy most of the financial market in the Catalan countries.” In his motivational speech to the fintech agents during their training process, he explained that the foundation that is above the bank is located in Switzerland “for strategic reasons”, and that its statutes require that the benefits it can collect be reinvest in Catalonia. And his claims are high: “You just have to know in which sectors. If we establish them strategically, we will control 40% of Catalonia’s GDP.”
11Onze spokespersons defend that its headquarters be outside the State as a way to escape the control of the Bank of Spain and avoid conflicts with the bank card in the event of secession, but with this decision it does not pay taxes in Catalonia either. And its convoluted structure does not invite confidence.
In addition to the Swiss foundation, there are known companies related to the bank in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg, and it has revealed providers for its financial operation that are startups from London and Texas (United States), still in the consolidation phase and both immersed in their own funding rounds.
questions
Given this structure, questions arise such as who guarantees the deposits of the 11Onze accounts, since this depends on the country of the bank card. If it’s Luxembourg, it’s 100,000 euros, the same as in Spain, but other nations are not as generous, as EAE Business School professor Astrid López-Vilas explained to elEconomista.
Regarding taxation, another teacher from the same school, Enriqueta Villanueva, points out that there is still a legal vacuum in Spain in the case of fintech, and a lack of European harmonization. In any case, taxation is more advantageous in Luxembourg.
From the Finnish Arex Markets, an alternative financing fintech for SMEs that landed in Spain in July based in Barcelona, they recognize that it is difficult to talk about the regulation of fintechs, because it varies a lot depending on the services they offer. In the case of 11Onze, it intends to work with both individuals and companies.
In any case, those who want to download the 11Onze app on October 1 will not find it with that name, but rather by searching for the name El Canut, a hollow cylinder made of cane, leather or metal that was used as a purse in the Middle Ages. And due to the details revealed in the last hours, it will be a mere container for products from other entities, which will be gradually incorporated with the aim of completing its deployment for Christmas.
Facebook Comments
Disqus