Bloomberg is reporting that neobank giant Revolut has received approval from UK financial regulator The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an investment firm, which will permit it to expand its services from banking and payment services to include stock and CFDs trading.
Revolut is currently regulated by the FCA as an Authorised Electronic Money Institution. Its listing on the FCA register does not yet show an investment firm license, but that might have been granted via a different company, or might be added to the FCA website shortly.
The news comes two months after we reported exclusively here at FNG that Revolut is entering the EU CFDs trading business with a new brand called Revolut Invest. The Revolut Invest app was made available for download on the Apple App Store for iOS devices, in select markets including Greece, Denmark and Czechia, where it is being tested with clients before a wider EU launch.
Bloomberg also cited Yana Shkrebenkova, Revolut’s head of wealth and trading in the UK, saying that the company had been developing the technology required to support UK and EU-listed products prior to gaining approval.
The moves by Revolut will make a very crowded UK and EU online trading market even more crowded. There are a number of “traditional” broker incumbents in both the UK and EU, as well as numerous licensed online brokers offering both real and CFDs-based trading. US neobroker Robinhood, after a few false starts earlier this decade, is also moving ahead with expansion plans in Europe, recently launching margin investing in the UK, as well as a crypto-trading focused offering in the EU.
London based Revolut is one of the world’s largest neobanks, boasting 45 million customers and $23 billion in client balances (as of June 2024), while operating in 38 countries. The company brought in Revenues of $2.2 billion in 2023, earning Net Profit of $428 million. Revolut is the most downloaded app in the Finance category in Europe, ranking first in 17 countries. Revolut is run by founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky.
