Revolut: Neobank achieves record profit of €508 million
British neobank Revolut is currently experiencing a massive upswing. The scale-up was recently in negotiations that could bring it a valuation of over $40 billion. Now the fintech is also recording record profits and revenues, reports CNBC. The financial results show that pre-tax profit rose to £438 million (€508 million) in 2023, moving from a pre-tax loss of £25.4 million in 2022 into profitability. Group revenue rose 95% to £1.8 billion (€2.1 billion), compared to £920 million (€1 billion) in 2022.
Revolut could soon receive a British banking license
Nikolay Storonsky, CEO and co-founder of the British fintech giant told CNBC that these figures made him optimistic about the company’s chances of obtaining a British banking license. The company has overcome several important hurdles in its more than three-year road to regulatory approval. “Hopefully we’ll get it sooner or later. The regulators are still working on it,” Storonsky said.
Revolut is a licensed electronic money institution (EMI) in the UK. However, it cannot yet offer credit products such as credit cards, personal loans, or mortgages. A banking license would allow the company to offer loans in the UK. The application, which the company submitted in 2021, has been long delayed.
Record growth in customers in 2023
The fintech has multiple share classes, and some of these share classes used to have preferential rights attached to them. One of the Bank of England’s conditions for granting the UK banking license was to merge the six share classes into ordinary shares. Revolut has since resolved this issue by agreeing with Japanese tech investor SoftBank. This reportedly includes a transfer to a single share class and the waiver of preferential rights.
Aside from profit and revenue, the neobank has now also achieved a record increase in user numbers. Victor Stinga, Chief Financial Officer of Revolut, explained that the scale-up was able to gain around twelve million new customers in 2023. “We see 2023 as a breakthrough year from a growth and profitability perspective“, Stinga said in an interview this week.
