Revolut has been awarded a full banking licence by French authorities, with the authorisation granted following an assessment by the ACPR, the French banking regulator, and the European Central Bank, the company said on Monday. The approval allows Revolut to widen the range of loans, mortgages and savings products it can offer to customers in France, where the fintech counts 7mn customers among its largest European customer bases.
The licence forms part of a wider push into continental Europe. Revolut has pledged to invest €1bn and hire roughly 600 people across western Europe, alongside opening a European headquarters in Paris. French regulators had previously pressed Revolut to secure a licence that would allow closer oversight and supervision of its French operations.
Revolut first obtained a European banking licence from Lithuanian authorities in 2018, and Lithuania continues to jointly regulate the group's European business alongside the ECB. The ECB has in the past placed restrictions on Revolut's ability to launch new products, citing deficiencies in the company's risk and compliance processes linked to the pace of earlier product rollouts.
Nik Storonsky, Revolut's founder and chief executive, said France had become "a leading financial hub," pointing to the country's regulatory framework and describing the licence as a step toward the company's ambition of becoming one of Europe's largest and most trusted banks.
The French approval follows Revolut's receipt of a full UK banking licence in March, granted after a prolonged period of regulatory engagement during which concerns had been raised over the company's risk controls. Rachel Reeves, then UK chancellor, was reported to have previously attempted to broker a meeting between Revolut and regulators, an effort reported to have been blocked by Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England. Regulators in Australia subsequently granted Revolut a full banking licence, a decision that followed the UK authorisation; other international regulators had reportedly been reluctant to issue their own licences because of hesitancy at the UK's Prudential Regulation Authority.
Revolut reported pre-tax profit of £1.7bn last year, up 57 per cent, on revenue of £4.5bn. The company now serves 75mn customers across 40 countries and is targeting 100mn. It is currently overseeing a secondary share sale that would value the business at $115bn, while Storonsky has said Revolut would not go public before 2028 at the earliest. A separate incentive package tied to Storonsky's stake would be granted if the group's valuation reaches $500bn.
The French licence adds ACPR and ECB supervisory requirements to Revolut's compliance and reporting obligations as it extends lending, mortgage and savings products into the French market, layering additional oversight onto a European business already subject to prior ECB-imposed product restrictions as the group continues its expansion ahead of any future listing.
