Revolut makes second bid for US banking permit
Revolut has made its second play for a US banking licence to crack the North American market as efforts for a UK permit continue to drag on.
The London-born fintech juggernaut said on Thursday it had filed for a US bank charter as it named its new boss for the North America region.
Nik Storonsky, Revolut’s founder and chief executive, described the move as a “major milestone” towards the firm’s vision of building the “first truly global banking platform.”
“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,” the fintech boss added.
Former Visa executive and fintech veteran Cetin Duransoy was named as the group’s new US chief, succeeding Sid Jajodia who remains the neobank’s global chief banking officer.
It marks Revolut’s second swing to secure a US banking license after it’s first in March 2021 through Californian regulators.
The initial effort ultimately stalled and was withdrawn by late 2023 following years of regulatory friction, including a staggering $20m loss due to a flaw in its US payment system and concerns over its internal financial controls.
Speculation mounted last year that the firm was plotting buying a US bank as a way to secure a licence, but reports suggested such a plan was abandoned as it would have legally mandated Revolut to maintain physical branches.
On its home turf, Revolut continues to face regulatory headaches in its pursuit of a full-fat UK banking permit.
The $75bn fintech entered a mobilisation period last year after a three-year wait for a licence approval but is still yet to be given the green light for a full launch.
Revolut has argued due to its scale and complexity making it the largest firm to move through mobilisation in UK history “getting this right is more important than rushing to meet a specific date”.
In the US, Revolut has near 1.2 million customers. The business said the US licence would allow it to operate seamlessly across all 50 states under federal regulatory oversight.
Fintech’s flee to US after Trump reforms
The play for a US permit follows a fleet of fintech peers, which have sought to capitalise on President Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
Bunq – which is Europe’s second biggest digital bank only behind Revolut – has set its sights on the US after lodging an application for a national charter to operate as a bank with a US Treasury Bureau.
The Dutch challenger bank – which reached 20 million users towards the end of last year in just a decade – turned its attention to the US after bagging a broker-deal licence last year, which allowed it to bring its stock trade offering to users in America.
In December, payments giant Paypal said it had lodged an application for a US licence to help bolster its small business lending capacity, after providing over $30bn in loans and working capitals to business accounts since 2013.
This followed Brazilian fintech Nubank and crypto giant Coinbase, who each lodged their applications for US banking charters in 2025 in a bid to seize the Trump administration’s reforms.
Trump enacted a sweeping change to the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, which was enacted after the financial crisis to boost financial stability and increase accountability, as well as the Consumer Protection Act of the same year.
The reformed hiked the primary asset threshold at which firms face tougher prudential standards to $250bn from $50bn previously, meaning fewer companies were subject to stringent standards.
They also eased the ‘Volcker Rules’ for lenders with assets of less than $10bn, meaning banks were less restricted from certain speculative investments.