[SilverBirch]

This is really quite very very bad. I remember someone on twitter a while ago pointing out they keep missing the deadline for publishing their accounts. Like one of the things I would be quite keen to do if I were applying for a banking license would be to make sure I'm getting the paperwork right. Given that Revolut have raiesd enormous amounts of cash, I'd imagine they're pretty keen to IPO, and to do that they need a UK banking license - and there's just no way that's happening any time soon given what's going on. This could really cause them trouble and in the mean time the equity of any of the employees has probably already gone to zero because of the massive valuations they've raised at.

[toyg]

They counted on their chumminess with the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who's been an outspoken supporter of Revolut. Iirc a report from Private Eye, there is a hint of an ongoing cold war between the PM's henchmen telling bank regulators to let them get the license, and regulators resisting - likely because nobody wants to be responsible for authorizing a business that clearly doesn't meet the necessary requirements in very obvious ways.

[ztrww]

> and to do that they need a UK banking license

Why does it specifically have to be an UK banking license?

[rchaud]

That's where they're headquartered.

Also in 2008, the UK had an issue where 350k residents had deposits at Icesave, a savings account offered by Landsbanki in Iceland, that went bust. The bank wasn't registered in the UK, and the government of Iceland refused to provide compensation for those that lost their deposits. They probably want to avoid a repeat of that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute

[SilverBirch]

Two things: first they’re a bank, in the Uk, it looks terrible to not have a banking license and that’d kill their IPO price. Second, there are limitations on customer deposits and the services they can provide because they aren’t a bank, for example they aren’t currently Uk equivalent of FDIC insured. There’s basically an assumption that their banking license will massively help both their growth and their value per customer.

[ztrww]

But they do have a license in Lithuania which means all the deposits are covered by their insurance. I agree about the IPO part but I really find it hard to imagine an IPO would make any sense for them at this point. I don’t think there is any chance they could reach their current private valuation…