Revolut has filed for a US banking licence and named a new CEO to head up its American operations as the fintech giant continues on its ambitious expansion plans.
The neobank said on Thursday it had applied to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for a US national bank charter.
Alongside the application, the company also announced that former Capital One and Visa exec Cetin Duransoy will join Revolut as US CEO.
“Filing for a national bank charter is a major milestone toward our vision of building the world’s first truly global banking platform,” Revolut founder and CEO Nik Storonsky said in a statement. “This charter will give us the direct control needed to innovate faster and deliver the Revolut experience to millions more Americans as we move toward our goal of 100 million customers.”
Initially founded as a travel finance app in 2015, Revolut is a UK-based digital bank providing a smorgasbord of financial services including international money transfer, crypto and stock trading and even pet insurance.
In the past two years, some of the new product line it’s endeavoured to go into include private banking, rewards credit cards and AI agents, per Sifted reporting. It has more than 70m customers, operates in more than 40 countries and is currently valued at $75bn.
However, the company derives most of its revenue from its activities in European markets. A US bank charter would enable Revolut to offer FDIC-insured deposits to its American customers. It would no longer need to work with partner banks to offer banking services in the country.
Revolut isn’t the only UK neobank to make moves stateside. SME lender OakNorth bought the Michigan-based Community Unity Bank last March and in June last year, Revolut rival Starling told Sifted it’s seeking to obtain a banking licence in the US.
