Revolut, recently valued at $33 billion, has received approval to operate in the United Kingdom.
Summary
UK approves the Revolut financial platform
The approval came about 6 months after the application submitted by Revolut, the new and innovative digital bank which closed a funding round led by SoftBank and Trigger Global months ago and raised $800 million, bringing the company’s listing to about $33 billion, up 6-fold from the $5 billion valuation in 2021.
JUST IN: 🇬🇧 $33 billion digital bank Revolut wins approval to offer #Bitcoin and crypto in the UK 🙌
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 27, 2022
The company, which is set to become one of the largest fintechs in the United Kingdom after gaining approval to operate within the European Union months ago, has finally obtained approval from its home country of Britain.
Launched in the UK in 2015, Revolut offers money transfer and money exchange services. Today, more than 20 million of its retail customers worldwide use dozens of Revolut’s innovative products, including peer-to-peer payments, Saving Vaults, Junior, Stays, and Trading.
In the past twelve months, Revolut has launched a number of new features including On Demand Pay in the UK, personalized loans in Ireland, and has been named as one of TIME’s 100 most influential companies. With services in 36 countries, Revolut is looking to expand into new markets including India, Mexico and Brazil, according to the company website.
It was precisely the difficulties in obtaining a license to operate in the United Kingdom that resulted in several top executives leaving the fintech in recent months. And earlier this year, Revolut CEO and co-founder Nik Storonsky sharply criticized the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for the inexplicable delay in granting it a UK banking license, telling CityAM that the FCA is “slower than other regulators.”
In this regard, Storonsky stated:
“We applied for 48 licences across the globe and we received 44, and three of the licences that we haven’t received are actually in the UK.”
Revolut’s plans and vision
But the company’s ambitious plans have certainly not stopped, quite the contrary. In the past month, the company has produced a commercial promoting its business. The TV spot was directed by Craig Gillespie, who has directed such films as “Cruella” and “I, Tonya,” and was shot by young photographer Aidan Zamiri, who has worked with artists such as FKA Twigs.Â
In addition to the commercial, the ads will appear on billboards, Revolut’s social media pages, digital marketing channels, and podcasts. The campaign was reportedly launched to celebrate reaching the considerable figure of 5 million customers in the UK and 20 million customers worldwide.
And it is clear that now, with this new license obtained from Britain, which in recent months had banned the world’s first exchange Binance from operating, top management is convinced that these important numbers can still grow.