Revolut: From a Travel Card to a Lithuanian License and a $115B Valuation

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Nik Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko founded Revolut in London in July 2015 around a prepaid card for spending abroad in 90 currencies at the interbank rate. Instead of routing payments through SWIFT correspondent banks, it settled transactions from its own currency pools and absorbed the cost to win customers. By 2016 it had 300,000 users and nearly £1 billion in transactions. Revolut Business followed in 2017, along with a subscription model that former product owner George Robson said was modeled on Amazon Prime, stock trading in 2019, FCA registration for crypto in 2022 and a euro-pegged stablecoin in August 2026.

Revolut applied for an EU banking license in 2017 and received it in late 2018 from the European Central Bank via the Bank of Lithuania, then used passporting to operate across Europe. In the UK it applied in 2021, won a restricted license in July 2024 and a full license in March 2026, bringing deposit protection up to £120,000. Growth brought problems: a U.S. payment flaw in late 2021 and early 2022 let criminals trigger about $20 million in refunds from corporate funds, a 2022 cyberattack exposed 50,000 customers, and the ECB restricted some activities in 2026. Revolut moved from a £25 million net loss in 2022 to $6 billion in 2025 revenue and a $115 billion valuation in a July 2026 share sale.

• Revolut now serves over 80 million customers in 40 countries with more than 12,000 employees.
• Storonsky said in April 2026 that Revolut is targeting a U.S. IPO in about two years at a $150 billion to $200 billion valuation.
• It spent over $100 million entering Mexico and won conditional approval for a U.S. bank charter in September 2026.
• In 2025 Revolut froze accounts of some customers holding Russian passports who lived legally in Europe.
• It sponsors Manchester City shirts and Audi's 2026 Formula One team, and in June 2026 required graduates and interns in the office three days a week.