Revolut

Revolut is a global neobank and financial technology company with headquarters in London, UK that offers banking services for retail customers and businesses. It was founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. It offers products including banking services, currency exchange, debit and credit cards, virtual cards, Apple Pay, interest-bearing "vaults", personal loans and BNPL (where it has a banking licence), stock trading, crypto, commodities, human resources and other services.

The European Central Bank granted the company a full banking licence in December 2021, and Revolut, with its banking services, is available in 30 countries.

In November 2020 Revolut was breaking even and, with a £4.2 billion valuation, became the UK's most valuable fintech company. A US$800 million funding round in July 2021 brought the company's valuation to US$33 billion, making it the most valuable UK tech startup at the time. In 2022, customer deposits at Revolut reached £12.6 billion ($15.5 billion).

As of December 2023, Revolut more than doubled its headcount in two years, employing over 7,500 people in more than 25 countries.

Revolut Bank UAB, the firm's European Economic Area subsidiary, is licensed and regulated by the European Central Bank within the European Union, and depositors' money is protected through deposit insurance, insured by the Lithuanian State Company Deposit and Investment Insurance. Revolut does not have a UK banking licence, and unlike banks it is not required to, and does not, reimburse victims of authorized push payment fraud in that country,

2015-2017
Revolut was founded on 1 July 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko as a solution to traditionally expensive overseas spending partly caused by hidden charges and fees. The Revolut platform was created to allow travellers to spend in over 90 countries. It provided accounts and debit cards that could be used abroad with no foreign transaction fees and a “real” exchange rate with no further fees, as opposed to other currency transfer systems that adjust exchange rates. The company was originally based in Level39, a financial technology incubator in Canary Wharf, London.

By 2016, Revolut had around 300,000 users who had transacted almost £1 billion. In 2017, the company released its Revolut for Business app. After creating an account, users could hold, exchange or transfer money from 25 currencies. Business users also had access to real-time spending notifications and data analysis alerts.

2018-2021
In December 2018, Revolut secured a specialised bank licence from the European Central Bank, facilitated by the Bank of Lithuania, authorising it to accept deposits and offer consumer credits, but not to provide investment services. At the same time, an Electronic Money Institution licence was also issued by the Bank of Lithuania.

In July 2019, Revolut launched commission-free stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, initially for customers in its Metal plan. This was subsequently made available to all users.

In 2019, Revolut announced deals with Visa and Mastercard. Through its Mastercard partnership, the company expanded into the U.S., and the deal with Visa saw Revolut expand into 24 new markets and hire an additional 3,500 people. In October, Singapore became the company's first Asian market.

In March 2020, Revolut was launched in the United States. In August, the company launched its financial app in Japan.

In November 2020, Revolut became profitable.

In January 2021, the company announced that it had applied for a UK banking licence. In March 2021, Revolut applied for a bank charter in the US via applications with the FDIC and the California Department of Financial Protection.

Since 2022
In January 2022, Revolut launched as a bank (instead of an e-money institution) in 10 additional European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.

In September 2022, Revolut was targeted by a cyberattack. An unauthorised third party obtained access to a small percentage (0.16%) of customer details for a short period. No funds were accessed or stolen. In the same month, The UK's Financial Conduct Authority added Revolut to its list of companies authorized to offer cryptocurrency products and services; it had offered crypto trading since 2017 but had not been regulated.

Ultra was launched in 2023 and is Revolut's top-tier membership for users in the UK and EEA. The plan includes Revolut's best rates and lowest fees across savings, FX, stocks, unlimited airport lounge access, cancellation for any reason insurance as well as subscriptions to Financial Times, ClassPass, Wework, NordVPN and more.

In January 2023, Revolut announced it would transfer its 2 million Irish customers to a new Irish branch and move these customers from Lithuanian IBANs to Irish IBANs, in a bid to compete with the remaining incumbent banks following the exit of RBS and KBC Bank from Ireland. In 2023 Revolut also launched IBANs in France, Netherlands and Spain.

Revolut accounts began allowing staking for holders of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies in the UK and European Economic Area in 2023. The ability to delegate stake and earn rewards for helping to maintain a blockchain is part of proof-of-stake blockchains Cardano (ADA), Ether (ETH), Polkadot (DOT), and Tezos (XTZ).

In May 2023 it was reported that the UK's Prudential Regulation Authority was poised to reject Revolut's application for a banking licence in the UK.

In July 2023, the Financial Times reported that Revolut had lost $20 million to organized criminal groups due to a flaw in its US payment system between late 2021 and early 2022. The issue affected the company's corporate funds and not customer accounts; some of the money was recouped.

In August 2023, Revolut announced that they would stop offering cryptocurrency trading services to their US customers due to the 'evolving regulatory environment' as the Securities and Exchange Commission intensified regulations regarding certain crypto assets and platforms.

As of June 2024, Revolut has reached 45 million customers globally.

Funding
The company raised £6.5 million ($8.5 million) in a Series A funding round in 2016. An additional £17 million was raised on an equity crowdfunding site. A year later, $66 million was raised in a Series B funding round. Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, and Ribbit Capital all participated.

On 26 April 2018, Revolut raised $250 million in Series C funding. It had a post-funding valuation of US$1.7 billion, making it a unicorn. In February 2020, Revolut completed a Series D funding round of $580 million that more than trebled its value, valuing the company at £4.2 billion and becoming the United Kingdom's most valuable financial technology startup.

In July 2021, Revolut's Series E raised US$800 million from investors, including SoftBank Group and Tiger Global Management, at a US$33 billion valuation. This made Revolut the leading European start up in terms of valuation.

As of June 2023, Revolut has raised $1.7 billion in total funding.

Personal and business banking
Revolut offers banking services including GBP and EUR bank accounts, debit cards, credit cards, currency exchange, stock trading, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payments. Revolut's mobile app supports spending and ATM withdrawals in 120 currencies and transfers in 36 currencies directly from the app. Revolut's credit card is available in Poland, Lithuania, the United States, and Ireland.

Revolut also provides customers access to cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano and XRP by exchanging with 25 fiat currencies. A fee of 1.49% for buying or selling applies. Crypto cannot be deposited or spent, only converted back to fiat inside Revolut. Additionally, Revolut banks with Metropolitan Commercial Bank of New York, which does not allow the transfer of fiat money to or from cryptocurrency exchanges.

Retail App
Users with a personal Revolut account have access to services in some markets including payments and cards, savings, credit, investment and trading, cryptocurrency trading, multi currency accounts, shared accounts, premium lifestyle features and donations.

Protection of funds
Revolut is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which ensures end-to-end security of information and protection of funds. The standards are internationally recognized regulations set to protect cardholder data.

Revolut Bank
Revolut Bank UAB, licensed by the European Central Bank, provides deposit account services in 30 EEA markets. Customers in those markets have access to deposit protection of up to €100,000 to their accounts for free. This is covered by the Lithuanian State company Deposit and Investment Insurance.

Revolut Ltd
As an electronic money institution, Revolut protects funds via Safeguarding. Using this process, funds are held at partner banks where they receive the safeguards provided by banking institutions.

UK fraud victims
Although Revolut has applied, it does not have a UK banking licence. UK banks operate the voluntary Contingent Reimbursement Model Scheme (CRM) scheme in the UK whereby victims of fraud neither dishonest nor unduly negligent are reimbursed by the bank; Revolut, not a bank and not a signatory to the code, does not reimburse many who would be eligible under the code. In 2023, the company reported a 35% reduction to authorised push payments (APP) fraud. However, the number of complaints of fraud reported to Action Fraud in the UK by Revolut customers rose from 567 in February 2023 to 1,086 for February 2024.

Complaints have been made by defrauded Revolut customers to the Financial Ombudsman, who in some cases has required Revolut to reimburse and compensate victims, and remove fraud markers wrongly placed against the individuals.

Additionally, the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) pays compensation if a banking firm is unable, or likely to be unable, to pay claims against it. The code does not apply to non-banks such as Revolut, or for e-money.

Employment practices
In March 2019, Wired published an exposé of the company's employment practices and work culture. This found evidence of unpaid work, high staff turnover and employees feeling the need to work weekends in order to meet performance indicators. A later article in December 2019 by Sifted noted that Revolut had a higher rating than its peers on Glassdoor.

In June 2020, Wired published a further exposé of Revolut's dismissal of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which employees, particularly in Kraków, were given the choice of being terminated for underperformance or a mutual agreement to leave the company voluntarily, in order to reduce the headline number of 62 redundancies announced by Revolut. The report said "Current and former Revolut employees say staff were coerced into accepting terminations, even though the company had no legal grounds to fire them" and that employees in Porto were pressured into agreeing to a salary sacrifice scheme in order to keep their jobs. According to Wired, in a message sent to the 495-strong customer support team on Slack shortly after the salary sacrifice scheme was announced, head of support Inna Grynova urged them to participate.

Automated suspension of accounts (2020)
Revolut, in common with traditional financial institutions, uses algorithms to identify money laundering, fraud and other criminal activity. Under certain anti-money laundering legislation, if suspicious activities are being investigated, bank staff are not allowed to tell customers why their accounts have been frozen.

It has been reported since 2020 that Revolut's algorithms suspended accounts for weeks or months at a time after unusual activity was detected. Revolut's policies require customers whose accounts were suspended to request a resolution via in-app chat support. Revolut said that "the system is programmed to temporarily lock an account and place it in a queue, until one of our compliance agents can review the case".

In February 2020, The Daily Telegraph reported that Revolut suspended an account containing £90,000 for more than two months and that another customer travelled 500 miles from Auvergne in France to Revolut's London offices in an unsuccessful attempt to recover £15,000 in an account that Revolut had frozen without no justification given. The account was later closed and the money in it returned to the customer's other bank accounts.

Also in February 2020, The Times reported that Revolut suspended and subsequently closed a business account containing €300,000 belonging to Priorité Energie, an energy transition start-up company, preventing the company from paying its staff. Revolut publicly apologised and eventually rectified the problem.

There were further reports in 2021 of Revolut withholding clients' funds.