Revolut Beyond Banking – The Founder’s View on The Future of Fintech

At Dublin Tech Summit 2021 Virtual, CNBC tech reporter Ryan Browne was joined by founder and CEO of Revolut Nikolay Storonsky to discuss the impact that the pandemic had on the financial world, the position that his company currently holds in the market, and how this sector will look in a post COVID-19 world.

Revolut is a financial technology company that offers banking services. Headquartered in London, it was founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. It offers accounts featuring currency exchange, debit cards, virtual cards, Apple Pay, interest-bearing “vaults”, commission-free stock trading, crypto, commodities, and other services.

 

To begin with, when asked if the coronavirus outbreak had any negative effects on the company’s business Mr. Storonsky says that on the contrary, Revolut has actually seen an increase in profitability since the start of the pandemic!

This has led to the first profitable semester in the company’s history which, Storonsky predicts, is expected to be the new norm going forward. But one wonders, given the apparent increase of profitability in the financial sector, how is Revolut expected to stay ahead of its competition?

Mr. Storonsky thinks the future of the banking sector in 5 to 10 years will be dominated by 4 to 5 major platforms such as his own, with possibly one or two per continent. This will put the banks in a difficult position as a lot of smaller, local banks won’t be able to compete with these platforms and their new technologies. Revolut may also consider the purchase of one of those local banks in order to acquire a banking licence and a local payments infrastructure. This process might take several years as there is complexity involved in integrating another banking system into Revolut’s own.

Lastly Storonsky was asked about maintaining startup culture and employee mental health within his company, to which he explained the introduction of “well-being” days, which are days off work that can be requested from employees to address any stress or mental health issue they may have, and regular social events in all offices around the world, to help with team-building and healthy relationships amongst co-workers.

 

You can watch the talk here.

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