Hard to believe Revolut is only 10 years old, given how present the fintech is worldwide. It started out mainly as a free account and card, running on Mastercard. But in 2017, Revolut announced it wanted to become a bank, and got a licence in Lithuania. Where the conditions are less strict, as the boss of a French fintech pointed out to me. It then got one in the UK in the summer of 2024.

In the meantime, the company became a unicorn valued at $1.8bn in 2018, then $5.5bn in 2020 after breaking the fundraising record for a fintech ($500M). It then broke its own record with €800M in 2021 at a $33bn valuation. A secondary sale of employee shares in 2024 valued it at $45bn. That is more than banking giants such as Lloyds (£35bn) or Barclays (£32bn).

Above all, the company was profitable in 2022 and 2023 (as was Bunq), with $2bn in revenue for 45M claimed customers. 3M of them are in France, 4x more than the former HSBC France and 2x AXA Banque. It is also way ahead of France’s online banks: BForBank (Crédit Agricole, 230K), Monabanq (CM Alliance Fédérale, 320K), Hello Bank (BNP, 800K), Fortuneo (CM Arkea, 1.2M), but half the size of Boursorama (Société Générale, 6M).

I touched on this market six months ago, when the French neobank Shine was put up for sale.