Revolut, the UK’s fastest-growing financial technology company, has started the process of applying for a license in Luxembourg to cope with the potential disruption of Brexit, The Financial Times writes.

The digital payments company that has almost tripled its customers to 2.8m in a year, plans to set up an office in Luxembourg and is in talks with the country’s regulators.


“It takes us six months to get an e-money license and so we have applied for one in Luxembourg – just to be on the safe side,” said Nikolay Storonsky, the co-founder and chief executive of Revolut.

The British government has promised to defend Britain’s position as a global fintech hub. However, some executives in the sector have warned that Brexit could undermine its attractiveness, especially if it becomes harder to hire technology specialists in the UK.


Nikolay Storonsky said he had no plans to leave London, adding “I love it here”. But he predicted the UK capital would fade as a financial centre because “more banks will cut back as they make less money, they are squeezed by regulation and face competition from fintechs”.


Revolut met UK regulators last year about applying for a banking license but instead it decided to apply for one in Lithuania, partly to avoid the disruption of Brexit. The company expects Lithuania to grant its banking license next month.  

Revolut was founded in 2015 in London. Initially the company elaborated pre-paid card operators seeking to disrupt traditional banks by offering cheap cross-border payments.

Today Revolut works with 130 currencies (including 3 cryptocurrencies). The company has close to 3m users (mainly from the United Kingdom). Last year the startup raised USD 250m from investors that valued it at USD 1.7bn.


Nikolay Storonsky will visit Tokyo to announce plans for launching Revolut services there, which could make Japan its first Asian market. The company also plans to expand in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Earlier Revolut announced its intention to enter the Russian market.

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