Revolut’s UK Banking License Is a Big Win for Customers, Boost for IPO Watchers
Revolut’s UK Banking License Is a Big Win for Customers, Boost for IPO Watchers
Plus, fintech H1 '24 saw funding sink, bank-fintech enforcement actions rise, OTC institutional crypto spot transactions surge and payments-driven app usage grow.
Number of the Week: $4.5 million (explanation below)
Revolut’s UK Banking License Is a Big Win for Customers and a Boost for IPO Watchers
Revolut’s Canary Wharf real estate deal could not have been more perfectly timed. Last month, the fintech giant announced that it was moving its headquarters to the YY London building in the City’s financial district, taking a 10-year lease, increasing its corporate footprint by 40% and intending to boldly display its logo on two sides of the new building. All of this, apparently, in anticipation of having its application for a U.K. banking license approved after a three-year wait.
On July 25th, Revolut finally secured its U.K. banking license, a fortuitous turn for the world’s second most-valuable fintech after Stripe.
Revolut is now seeking a $45 billion valuation—more than the market caps of Barclays, NatWest and Standard Chartered—in a $500 million employee-owned share sale. The employee shares could be sold to new shareholders including Coatue Management and Greenoaks, as well as to existing investor Tiger Global Management, The Wall Street Journal reported. Coatue’s investment portfolio includes Chime, Chainalysis, Marqeta, Alchemy, Bitso, and Boost Insurance; Greenoaks’ investments include Stripe, Robinhood, Checkout.com, Brex, Airwallex and Databricks.
Such a valuation would make Revolut the U.K.’s biggest unicorn, far exceeding the valuations of rivals Checkout.com ($11 billion), Wise ($7.4 billion), Monzo ($5.2 billion) and Starling ($3.2 billion). Starling got its U.K. banking license in 2016; Monzo followed suit in 2017. Checkout.com and publicly traded Wise operate as payments companies in the U.K.