Revolut finally has the UK banking licence it chased for years. The harder test starts now: proving a $115 billion valuation makes sense when credit risk, not currency exchange, becomes the business.
Revolut is no longer just the app you use to dodge bad exchange rates on a weekend away. Bloomberg reported that Glade Brook Capital is lining up a secondary share sale that could value the company at $115 billion, up from the $75 billion valuation it reached in November 2025. That number only works if Revolut turns its licence into lending income, not just more glossy cards in your phone.
Go back to 2015 and the leap is almost ridiculous. Nik Storonsky, a former Lehman Brothers derivatives trader, and Vlad Yatsenko started with prepaid currency cards for people in London who were tired of being clipped by bank foreign exchange fees. It wasn't a bank. It was a sharp product with a narrow job. Today Revolut says it has more than 70 million customers globally and 13 million in the UK, and regulators have finally let it operate as a proper bank in its home market.
The key date is March 11, 2026. The Guardian reported that Revolut Bank UK Ltd received approval from the Prudential Regulation Authority to move beyond the restricted licence it had held since July 2024. Revolut first applied in 2021, which tells you plenty about how much scrutiny sat behind this decision. Once customers are migrated to the UK bank, eligible deposits are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £120,000 per person, the same protection customers expect at HSBC or Barclays.
That protection changes the pitch. If you're paid into Revolut, the app is no longer asking you to treat it as a clever layer on top of your old bank. It wants to be the bank.
Credit is where that starts to matter. For years, opening a UK credit card or taking out a loan through Revolut wasn't really the point, and in many cases wasn't possible under its old permissions. Bloomberg reported on June 4 that UK chief executive Francesca Carlesi said Revolut was preparing five credit card products, one for each subscription tier. Sifted has reported that the cards will be tied to RevPoints, the rewards programme Revolut introduced for debit card users last year.
Don't dismiss that as a small product launch. A debit card business can collect fees, subscriptions and attention. A bank that lends can earn interest, but it also has to price risk properly when customers miss payments, lose jobs or simply borrow too much. That is a different discipline from building a fast foreign exchange app.
Revolut is reportedly targeting $9 billion in revenue and $3.5 billion in profit for 2026, according to internal projections cited by Connecting the Dots in Fin.Tech. Those targets depend on millions of existing users doing something more valuable than checking balances, trading crypto, buying travel insurance or paying for Metal plans. Revolut needs them to borrow, save and run more of their financial lives inside the app.
The $115 billion figure is also worth reading carefully. Bloomberg described the deal as a secondary sale, not a fresh funding round that sends new cash into Revolut's accounts. Early employees and investors would be able to sell shares, with Glade Brook expected to lead the transaction alongside existing backers including Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, SoftBank and TCV. At least $750 million of stock is reportedly on the table, with demand potentially pushing the sale as high as $2 billion.
If it closes at that price, Revolut becomes Europe's first private company worth more than $100 billion. Storonsky's stake, already close to 29%, would be worth at least $36 billion under an incentive structure linked to that valuation, Bloomberg reported. That's a stunning payout attached to a company that only months ago was still waiting to clear the final regulatory gate in Britain.
An IPO is still not around the corner. Bloomberg has reported that Storonsky is unlikely to list the company before 2028, while Revolut continues to work toward a US banking charter. American Banker reported that its newly appointed US chief executive told the Digital Banking conference in Orlando on June 16 that the company wants to become the first truly global bank, with an American launch targeted for early 2027.
Frankly, the licence was not the finish line. It was permission to enter the harder race. Revolut now has to compete for UK borrowers against HSBC, Barclays, Monzo and the rest, while showing regulators that its controls can keep pace with its growth. The valuation says investors believe the company can make that jump. Customers will find out when the credit cards arrive.
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