Revolut's Storonsky Blames Europe's Fragmented Rulebook

Revolut made £1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) in profit last year and now serves more than 80 million customers. Founder and chief executive Nik Storonsky says Europe’s shortage of companies like Revolut has little to do with a lack of talent or money. He blames the continent’s patchwork of national regulators.

At Revolut’s new Paris headquarters at 116 Rue Réaumur, where construction is still underway, Storonsky called Europe’s fragmentation a barrier to growth. Europe has many countries and regulators, he said, and faces heavier regulation than the United States, which operates as a single market. He contrasted Europe with Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs reinvest in the next generation of startups.

The Growth Story

The figures stand out. Revolut had around 10 million customers in 2019, the first year it published results, and posted a loss of nearly £100 million ($130 million). Six years later, it made £1.3 billion in profit. Eleven business lines each bring in more than £100 million in annual revenue. Interest accounts for 21.6% of total income; cards, subscriptions, investing and foreign exchange make up most of the rest.

Incumbent banks may find the comparison uncomfortable. Santander earned about $16.5 billion in 2025, while BBVA made roughly $12.3 billion. Revolut doesn’t publish standard bank profitability measures, but calculations from its accounts point to a return on equity of about 35% in 2025, compared with 16.3% for Santander and 19.3% for BBVA. The figures aren’t fully comparable: listed banks publish official ratios, while Revolut doesn’t.

Storonsky said legacy banks are held back by their own architecture. Many depend on outsourced systems designed for one country, while groups that grew by acquiring other banks often wound up with systems that can’t communicate. At those institutions, he said, “it's almost impossible to get something new off the ground,” because internal processes are built to slow initiatives under heavy regulation.

Regulators Push Back

Growth hasn’t come without friction. In 2025, the European Central Bank temporarily restricted new product launches while it reviewed whether Revolut’s controls could keep pace with its expansion. UK regulators took years to assess whether the company’s financial-crime controls were adequate for its size before granting its full banking licence.

Revolut has responded by hiring more staff. Storonsky said about 200 engineers build tools for regulatory compliance, while another team of about 250 engineers, data scientists and product staff works on financial-crime regulation. The company also uses artificial intelligence in engineering, customer support, compliance and financial-crime prevention.

The chief executive described Revolut’s approach to lending as deliberately cautious. Its loan-to-deposit ratio sits around 4%, and he doesn’t expect it to rise above 10%, 15% or 20%. The goal, he said, is to stay safe and avoid risky business. He said lending faces heavier regulation than lifestyle products and is largely commoditised; even Klarna’s buy-now-pay-later product, perhaps the latest lending innovation, became heavily regulated. Society and regulators tend to prefer less risky products, he said, although innovation can improve efficiency.

Expansion Beyond Europe

Revolut remains privately held. A secondary share sale this summer valued it at about $115 billion, and Storonsky said a stock-market listing is unlikely before 2028. Outside Europe, Revolut operates in Japan, has launched a pilot in India and holds a banking licence in Australia, with New Zealand a possible next launch. It has central-bank approval to acquire Banco Cetelem in Argentina. Storonsky pointed to Turkey as a market where newcomers must buy a bank because authorities no longer issue licences as they seek to consolidate the industry.

At home, Revolut is entering the physical world, opening offices and installing ATMs in Spain. Depending on foot traffic, an office can generate impressions more cost-effectively than digital advertising on Google, Facebook and Instagram, Storonsky said.

His ambition is clear. Asked what winning would look like, he said: “I hope I can say we have won if we are larger than JPMorgan [laughs]. I'm not sure if it's possible in 15 years' time, but we'll see.”

Why This Matters:

Revolut’s founder is saying aloud what many European entrepreneurs say privately: the single market isn’t yet single when it comes to financial services. A firm that grew from 10 million to more than 80 million customers still faced an ECB restriction on product launches and years of delay over a UK licence. The question for policymakers isn’t whether supervision should exist—Storonsky himself employs hundreds of compliance engineers—but whether 27 national rulebooks and overlapping supervisors make it harder for European champions to emerge and compete with American and Asian rivals. Competitiveness, not more regulation, is the test. Governments that want homegrown scale-ups will have to decide how much fragmentation they’re willing to keep paying for.