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Revolut

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Revolut Ltd
Company typePrivate
IndustryFinTech
Founded1 July 2015; 9 years ago (2015-07-01)[1]
FounderNikolay Storonsky, Vlad Yatsenko
HeadquartersLondon, England, UK
Key people
Nikolay Storonsky (CEO)
Vladyslav Yatsenko (CTO)
ProductsCurrent Accounts, Debit Cards, Insurance, Peer-to-peer lending, Remittance
ServicesPeer-to-peer payments, Currency Exchange
RevenueIncrease £58.24 million (2018)[2]
Number of employees
1,596[3] (2019)
Websiterevolut.com

Revolut Ltd is a UK financial technology company that offers banking services including a prepaid debit card (MasterCard or Visa), fee free currency exchange, commission free stock trading, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payments.[4] The Revolut mobile app supports spending and ATM withdrawals in 120 currencies and sending in 29 currencies directly from the app. It also provides customers access to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and XRP by exchanging to or from 25 fiat currencies. [5]

Revolut currently charges no fees for the majority of its services (but for a capped usage), and uses inter bank exchange rates for its currency exchange on weekdays, and charges a markup from 0.5% to 1.5% on weekends.

The London-based startup was founded by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. The company originally was based in Level39, a financial technology incubator in Canary Wharf, London.[6]

History

File:Revolut app.jpg
The Revolut app

On 26 April 2018, Revolut announced that it had raised a further $250 million in a funding round led by Hong Kong-based DST Global, reaching a total valuation of $1.7 billion and thus becoming a unicorn.[7] DST Global was founded by Yuri Milner, who has been backed by the Kremlin in his previous investments.[8]

In December 2018, Revolut secured a specialised bank licence from European Central Bank, facilitated by the Bank of Lithuania. Having secured a specialised bank licence, Revolut is authorised to accept deposits and offer consumer credits. The main difference between a specialised and a full-range bank is that the former is not authorised to provide investment services. At the same time, an Electronic Money Institution licence was issued by the Bank of Lithuania.[9][10]

In March 2019, an exposé of the company's employment practices and culture was published by Wired. This found evidence of unpaid work, high staff turnover and employees being ordered to work weekends to meet performance indicators.[11]

It was also revealed the company's Chief Financial Officer had quit, following allegations of compliance lapses.[12] This was denied by Revolut in a blog post.[13]

In July 2019 Revolut launched commission-free NYSE & NASDAQ stocks trading within its app for customers in its "Metal" plan.[14] Commission free trading has since been made available to all users.[15]

In August 2019, the company announced it was bringing in staff with more experience in traditional banking after critics suggested it was struggling to cope with its rapid growth. The hires included Wolfgang Bardorf, Treasurer and a former executive director at Goldman Sachs and the former global head of liquidity models and methodologies at Deutsche Bank, Philip Doyle, director of financial crime risk who was previously head of financial crime at ClearBank and fraud prevention manager at Visa, and Stefan Wille, deputy CFO who previously served as senior vice-president of finance at N26 and corporate finance manager at Credit Suisse.[16]

As of September 2019, the company claimed to have over 8 million users[17].

In October 2019 it was announced that the company will hire around 3,500 additional staff as it grows into 24 new markets owing to a new global deal with Visa.[18] In October 2019 Revolut launched in Singapore.[19]

Sky News reported in October 2019 that the company was looking to raise $1.5bn and had hired JP Morgan to facilitate this. The fundraise would value Revolut between $5-10bn.[20]

References

  1. ^ "Revolut company profile". AngelList. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
  2. ^ "Revolut revenue". Craft. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  3. ^ "Revolut Company Profile". Craft. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  4. ^ Dillet, Romain (2015-07-20). "Revolut Raises $2.3 Million For Its Mobile Foreign Exchange Service". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
  5. ^ Kyburz, Kevin (2018-01-29). "Banking App for Travelers – Revolut Converts Currencies Minus the Fees!". Techgarage. Retrieved 2018-02-11.
  6. ^ Dan, Enriques (2018-04-29). "Are You Ready To Give Fintech A Try?". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-06-12.
  7. ^ Munford, Monty (2018-04-26). "Revolut launches current accounts and a chatbot". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  8. ^ Drucker, Jesse (2017-11-05). "Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire's Twitter and Facebook Investments". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-01-31.
  9. ^ "Revolut granted specialised bank and electronic money institution licences". Bank Of Lithuania. 2018-12-13. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  10. ^ Megaw, Nicholas (2018-12-13). "Lithuania licence lets Revolut launch banking products". Financial Times. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  11. ^ Mellino, Emiliano (2019-02-28). "Revolut insiders reveal the human cost of a fintech unicorn's wild rise". Wired. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  12. ^ Russell, Joe. "Revolut CFO resigns following money laundering controversy". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  13. ^ "Let me set the record straight". Revolut Blog. 2019-03-01. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  14. ^ "Subscribe to read". Financial Times. Retrieved 2019-08-09. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  15. ^ "Should you trade stocks for free with Revolut?". Which? News. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  16. ^ "Revolut bolsters senior team with banking executives". FT. 2019-08-23. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
  17. ^ "Exclusive: Fintech firm Revolut to hire 3500 staff in global push with Visa". Reuters. 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  18. ^ Short, Eva (2019-09-30). "New deal with Visa will see Revolut hire thousands, expand into 24 markets". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
  19. ^ "Revolut opens for business in Singapore". City A.M. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  20. ^ "Revolut targets $1.5bn to join fintech elite". Sky News. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
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