From left: Revolut co-founders Vlad Yatsenko and Nikolay Storonsky. Image: Revolut
Feisty fintech start-up is living up to its reputation as the Amazon of banking.
Revolut has been granted an official European banking licence and has revealed plans to provide full current accounts.
The London-based fintech, which has operations in Dublin, also plans to roll out consumer lending and commission-free stock trading.
‘Our vision is simple: one app with tens of millions of users, where you can manage every aspect of your financial life with the best value and technology’
– NIKOLAY STORONSKY
The company will begin implementing the licence – which was granted in Lithuania – next year and will initially focus on smaller European countries before eventually passporting the banking licence to larger markets such as the UK, France, Germany and Poland.
The challenger bank is really a bank
Founded in 2015 by former Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank investment bankers Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, Revolut is an app with a multicurrency card.
Embracing its reality as a challenger bank with more than 250,000 daily active users, the fintech has been pushing out its product at an impressive rate in its mission to convince people to ditch their traditional banks.
The fintech start-up, which opened a Dublin office last year, gained unicorn status in April with a valuation of $1.7bn after raising $250m in funding. It is currently opening more than 8,000 new current accounts each day and processing more than $4bn in volumes each month.
The new banking licence will allow its customers to start depositing their salaries, which will be protected up to €100,000 under the European Deposit Insurance Scheme.
Revolut will also begin to work on offering overdrafts, and personal and business loans at competitive rates to traditional high-street lenders.
“With the banking licence now secured, commission-free stock trading progressing well and five new international markets at final stages of launch, we are living up to our reputation as the ‘Amazon of banking’,” said Nikolay Storonsky, co-founder and CEO of Revolut.
“Our vision is simple: one app with tens of millions of users, where you can manage every aspect of your financial life with the best value and technology,” he added.
