S2E28 — Is This the Start of a Revolut-ion? Inside the Rise of Nik Storonsky's $115bn Bank

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Revolut is valued at $115 billion, holds more than £50 billion of customer money, and lends out about £2 billion of it. What does a bank that refuses to lend actually do with a deposit, and what happens when the man who built it is the only part that cannot be automated?

In September Nik Storonsky won conditional approval from the OCC to form Revolut Bank US, sat down with the Banque de France in a black suit and a red tie, and watched two data breaches reach Revolut customers inside a fortnight. The founder who spent years being publicly rude about regulators is now dressing for them, and for the investors who will price a Revolut listing at up to $200 billion.

Aman Narain and Zubin Vandrevala trace Storonsky from Dolgoprudny and the Lehman trading floor to the Revolut of today, and ask whether he has built anything that works when he is not in the room.

Key takeaways:
1. Revolut's scar is Lehman, not Moscow: it lends under 5p of every deposit pound, where Nubank lends roughly 58p.
2. Nubank, Revolut and SoFi run the same flywheel but answer one question differently: a deposit is for credit, for float, or for software.
3. Removing credit risk bought rate risk. When rates fall the float shrinks, as Wise has already shown.
4. Citi, HSBC and Standard Chartered retreating as Revolut advances is one spreadsheet read from opposite ends.
5. Storonsky took judgment out of lending, hiring and investing, and kept all of it in one room: his own.

Topics covered:
- Dolgoprudny, the 1998 default, Phystech and the Lehman floor on 15 September 2008
- A sub-5% loan-to-deposit ratio, the contested 40-50% return on equity, and the ECB's 4.5% capital add-on
- Nubank, Revolut and SoFi: one flywheel, three ladders
- Mexico's 15% savings rate, and the rate risk inside the float
- Forty direct reports, Karma scores and five risk chiefs in seven years
- Revolut Pay, Spanish ATMs, a £500,000 private bank, Revolut People and AIR
- John Reed's Citi, success transfer, and the incumbents' retreat from retail
- Ports versus platforms, and why Durbin may tax the US charter
- The case against: fines, a secret ECB freeze, two breaches and sanctions
- The IPO test, and two closing wagers

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Cold open: Nik Storonsky's suit, Washington, April 2026
• (01:09) - A risk episode, and the suit is the tell
• (01:39) - Zuckerberg's hoodie, and a tie for the central bank
• (02:42) - Disclaimer
• (03:31) - Dolgoprudny, 1984: a company town for physicists
• (04:54) - Two currency collapses before he turned fourteen
• (05:42) - The childhood hypothesis versus the trader's arbitrage
• (06:19) - Phystech: raw brain power, then character, then craft
• (06:59) - Lehman, 25 Bank Street, 15 September 2008
• (08:12) - Credit Suisse, and his one rule on complex risk
• (08:56) - Six pence in every pound: the bank that won't lend
• (09:41) - The 40-50% return on equity claim, audited
• (10:24) - Zero risk weights and the ECB's 4.5% add-on
• (11:35) - Nubank vs Revolut: same flywheel, opposite ladders
• (13:27) - SoFi's third ladder: renting out the crown jewels
• (14:02) - What is a deposit for? Credit, float or software
• (14:50) - Mexico's 15% savings rate is a marketing budget
• (16:06) - The float's weather problem: rate cuts and Wise
• (17:02) - Inside the building: forty direct reports
• (17:43) - Jensen Huang's sixty, and the span-of-control question
• (19:36) - Karma: compliance priced into the bonus
• (21:06) - Hiring as a live exam, and millionaires in Krakow
• (22:08) - Five chief risk officers in seven years
• (22:34) - A different clock speed: 80 million customers
• (23:46) - Revolut Pay: an ad network with a checkout attached
• (25:01) - He built ATMs: Barcelona, Madrid, Milan
• (26:14) - Branches as billboards, and a £500,000 private bank
• (26:38) - Revolut People: the HR department became a product
• (27:35) - AIR: when super-app clutter becomes a moat
• (29:39) - The day the assistant moves money
• (29:56) - QuantumLight: taking judgment out of capital
• (31:04) - Risk doesn't vanish, it conserves
• (31:15) - Canary Wharf: Reuters, HSBC and Lehman in one view
• (32:20) - The oldest ambition in banking: to be everywhere
• (32:52) - John Reed, 1977: Citi builds its own ATMs
• (34:22) - Success transfer: Citigold, forty years early
• (35:17) - Nostalgia is not a strategy: the incumbents retreat
• (36:45) - Forty countries live, a hundred targeted
• (37:41) - Same spreadsheet, read from opposite ends
• (38:50) - They banked ports, he banks a platform
• (40:08) - Durbin: the US charter that may cost interchange
• (40:54) - A wager: will Revolut exit a country before 100?
• (41:58) - The founder's stake and the Jamie Dimon comparison
• (43:39) - Project Shasta: borrowing against his own shares
• (44:34) - Not the next Dimon: the next Elon
• (45:30) - Counting the parallels, from first principles to pay
• (47:26) - X.com, 1999: the everything bank Musk lost
• (48:17) - The case against: prosecution and defence
• (49:04) - Count one: fines and a secret ECB freeze
• (50:09) - Count two: 700 passports and a fake Italian request
• (53:02) - A second breach: DriveWealth
• (54:14) - Jackie Stewart: brakes let you go faster
• (55:05) - Count three: sanctions, and his father's designation
• (57:08) - The real test is a stock exchange
• (57:41) - On Wise's multiple, Revolut is a $27 billion company
• (59:02) - Ireland: four in five adults, but not the salary
• (01:00:00) - Closing wagers: credit in America or twenty directs?
• (01:00:47) - Has he built anything that works without him?
• (01:02:41) - Kitesurfing: the one variable he can't control

Referenced in this episode: Revolut 2025 annual report; Revolut $115bn secondary share sale (July 2026); OCC conditional approval for Revolut Bank US (3 September 2026); ECB restrictions on new EEA products (from July 2025); fraudulent government data requests and the DriveWealth breach (September 2026); Storonsky in conversation with David Rubenstein (April 2026); the FT's Patrick Jenkins in Paris; Citi's 2021 consumer exits; John Reed and Citi's 1977 ATM network; Elon Musk's X.com (1999).

Related episodes: Nubank and the Purple Revolution; Wedge, Ladder, Driver; S2E20 — The Real Price of PayPal.

Hosted by:
Creators & Guests

• Aman Narain - Host
• Zubin Vandrevala - Host

Aman Narain writes at amanwhoblogs.substack.com. Zubin Vandrevala is your payments provocateur.

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For information and entertainment only. Not financial advice.

Transcript:
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