After a four-year regulatory odyssey, Revolut has finally secured a full banking license in its home market of the United Kingdom. The milestone closes one of the longest-running licensing sagas in European fintech and opens a new chapter for a company that has spent a decade building a global customer base largely outside the perimeter of traditional banking regulation. For CEO Nik Storonsky, however, the license is less a destination than a structural prerequisite for what comes next: an initial public offering with a target valuation of $200 billion.
Storonsky has indicated the debut may not arrive until 2028, a timeline that reflects both ambition and caution. The delay is deliberate. In the interim, Revolut's valuation continues to climb through private transactions. A recent secondary share sale valued the company at $75 billion—a round that notably included participation from Nvidia—and another secondary offering is expected in the second half of this year, potentially pushing the valuation past $100 billion.
The trust premium of public markets
The logic behind Revolut's measured approach to going public is rooted in the particular dynamics of banking. Unlike software companies, which can operate for years as private entities without eroding customer confidence, banks depend on a perception of permanence and transparency. Deposits are a trust product. Storonsky has framed the eventual IPO not as a fundraising event but as a credibility exercise: public markets impose disclosure requirements, quarterly scrutiny, and regulatory visibility that collectively signal institutional solidity to depositors, counterparties, and regulators alike.
This reasoning carries weight given Revolut's history. The company spent years operating under electronic money institution licenses across Europe, a framework that allowed it to offer accounts and payments but not to lend or hold insured deposits in the traditional sense. The UK banking license changes that equation, granting Revolut the ability to take deposits protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and to build a lending book. The transition from a payments-and-FX platform to a full-service bank is operationally complex, requiring new risk infrastructure, capital buffers, and compliance architecture. Going public before that transformation is mature could invite the kind of market skepticism that undermines the very trust the listing is meant to build.
The financial stakes for Storonsky personally are substantial. According to reports from the Financial Times, reaching the $200 billion valuation threshold would trigger a contractual clause increasing Storonsky's stake in the company to 40%—a holding worth roughly $80 billion. That structure aligns the founder's incentives with long-term value creation, but it also means the IPO timeline is inseparable from the valuation trajectory.
The American question
Beyond the UK, Revolut has filed for a banking license in the United States, a move that signals the company's intent to compete not just with European neobanks but with the largest American financial institutions. The US market presents a different regulatory landscape: banking licenses are granted at the state and federal level, and the approval process involves multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdictions. Several fintech companies have pursued US banking charters in recent years with mixed results, encountering lengthy reviews and, in some cases, political resistance to the blurring of lines between technology firms and regulated lenders.
If Revolut secures a US license, the strategic implications are significant. The company already serves customers in the American market through a partnership model, but a full banking charter would allow it to hold deposits, issue loans, and operate with the kind of autonomy that distinguishes a bank from a fintech wrapper. It would also subject Revolut to US capital requirements and supervisory examinations—a trade-off that mirrors the UK licensing calculus: more regulation in exchange for more legitimacy.
The tension at the center of Revolut's trajectory is one that defines the current generation of fintech at scale. Growth-stage companies built on speed, global reach, and lean regulatory footprints must eventually choose whether to become banks in the full institutional sense or remain technology platforms that partner with banks. Revolut has chosen the former path, and the $200 billion IPO target is the clearest expression of that bet. Whether the market will validate that figure depends not only on revenue multiples and user growth but on something harder to quantify: whether regulators, depositors, and public investors come to see Revolut as a bank that happens to be built on technology, rather than a technology company that happens to hold a banking license.
With reporting from Brasil Journal Tech.
Source · Brasil Journal Tech
