Revolut passes 25 million customers, plans growth in new countries

The challenger bank Revolut has substantially grown its client base in recent months, during a time when many neobanks faced headwinds.

London-based Revolut says it now has more than 25 million retail customers, marking a 25% growth since July. It plans to continue expanding by adding products and entering new geographies in coming months.

The fintech offers a diverse array of services. The company offers not only remittances, checking and savings accounts (through partner banks), but cryptocurrency trading, investing and the ability to use airport lounges when a flight is delayed, among other things.

Rafael Henrique/Photographer: Rafael Henrique/SO

Emil Urmanshin, Revolut Crypto general manager, said by email on Thursday that Revolut has seen a 100% increase in the number of customers trading crypto on its platform year over year.

Revolut customers initiate more than 330 million transactions each month. 

"We continue to expand access to Revolut's fast, secure, and easy money transfers to countries around the world," Chief Technology Officer Vlad Yatsenko said in an email to American Banker. "Revolut is redefining how to send and receive money by simplifying the process of international transfers, offering competitive fees, and always providing the best possible exchange rate."

Yatsenko added that the neobank waives fees on transfers between Revolut users. 

The company provides consumer-facing and merchant-facing services like peer-to-peer payments, savings accounts (in the U.S. this is through partner Sutton Bank), cryptocurrency trading (with U.S. partner Apex Crypto), stock trading through Revolut Securities, remittances and in some countries, travel booking. 

The company also announced that over the next few months, it will launch Revolut Lite, a streamlined version of its app that allows users to transfer money cross-border in real time for free, in several countries across Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. 

Revolut is also seeing client acquisition from non-consumer products. More than 2,000 businesses join Revolut Business each week, the Thursday announcement said. The business-focused vertical, which launched in 2017 to help manage finances, has processed more than $130 billion in transactions to date.

Dylan Lerner, a senior analyst of digital banking at Javelin Strategy, said Revolut's growth is keeping up at a rapid clip, but that he isn't sure what offering is leading client acquisition. He added he thinks payments, the challenger bank's initial bread-and-butter, is still a big driver. Lerner said some of Revolut's product additions, like its vacation booking platform, seem less like relevant brand extensions and more like monetization tactics.

"We understand the neobank value proposition that probably was behind their initial popularity and their initial growth," Lerner said in an interview. "Now it's this question of, 'Where are new customers coming in from? Why are they coming in? Why are people staying?' With Revolut, we know where they started. Where are they now? Where they're going is a big question, too … I don't get a clear sense of direction here."

Revolut is expanding geographically to tap markets outside of Europe and the United Kingdom, where it already has a massive presence. Its fastest-growing geographies since July include, in order: the United Kingdom, Poland, Romania, France, Spain, Ireland and the United States.

"Our mission is to unlock the power of a borderless economy, for everyone, by bringing the world's first financial super app to all corners of the globe," the head of international expansion, André Silva, said in a prepared statement. 

The challenger bank has built a team of more than 400 employees in India and plans to grow a workforce of more than 250 folks between Mexico and Brazil. Revolut's presence in the United States, where it launched in 2020, is relatively modest, with about half a million retail customers and more than 150 employees. Former Revolut USA Chief Executive Ron Oliveira told American Banker in 2021 that he hoped to have 1 million users in the United States by that year's end. In the last four months, the company's seen 125,000 new U.S. customers.

Thibaut Genevrier, head of merchant acquiring for Revolut, said earlier this year that the company planned to tackle the American market through a major product push near the end of 2022 and into 2023. The fintech also applied for a California banking charter last year.

"We are working on obtaining a license on the banking side," Genevrier said. "But there is no big hurdle." The company will aim to move more aggressively "when it's the right time to invest," he said.