Revolut Bets large on Britain With £3 Billion Investment and New London HQ
Revolut has planted its flag more firmly in Britain, opening a new global headquarters in Canary Wharf and pledging £3 billion of investment over the next five years, with plans to create 1,000 high-skilled jobs.
The fintech, co-founded in London in 2015 by former Credit Suisse trader Nik Storonsky and developer Vlad Yatsenko, has grown from a travel card into a super-app used by more than 65 million customers worldwide. It now offers everything from payments and savings to crypto trading. Monday’s announcement reflects both its London roots and its global ambitions.
“From our roots here in the UK, we’ve grown to serve over 65 million customers globally, and today’s opening of our new Global HQ in London is the launchpad for our future,” Storonsky said at the event. “This HQ will be central to driving our growth towards our next milestone of 100 million customers.”
The new office at YY London, the former Reuters building at 30 South Colonnade, gives Revolut over 113,000 square feet of space on a 10-year lease. The return to Canary Wharf is a symbolic move: Revolut’s earliest days were spent in Level39, the district’s fintech incubator.
The investment pledge comes as Britain’s new government has courted financial services with what Chancellor Rachel Reeves calls the “Leeds Reforms.” Reeves told reporters the reforms were designed to make the UK the best place to build finance companies, a message she has reinforced by highlighting billions of pounds of recent foreign commitments. In the past week alone, Blackstone announced plans to deploy £100 billion in Britain, BlackRock promised £7 billion, and firms including PayPal and Bank of America confirmed £1.25 billion tied to nahead 2,000 jobs across major UK cities.
Yet Revolut’s growth story in its home market is complicated. The firm finally secured a UK banking licence last year, but only under the mobilisation regime — a restricted phase that limits deposit taking until systems and governance are fully tested. The mobilisation period is meant to last a year; Revolut’s has dragged on. Earlier this summer, the Financial Times reported that Reeves attempted to accelerate discussions with the Prudential Regulation Authority to end the delay, but Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey rebuffed the move, insisting on regulatory independence.
The episode was another reminder of Revolut’s unsimple relationship with regulators. Its 2021 accounts drew a qualified opinion from auditor BDO, which said it could not verify a large portion of revenues. Overseas, Lithuania’s central bank fined the company €3.5 million in April for anti-money laundering control failings. Revolut is also still waiting on a UK consumer-credit licence to expand lending products.
Globally, the company is pressing ahead. It expects to launch as a bank in Mexico next year and is preparing for entries into Colombia and Argentina. In India, it received a payments licence in April, and a rollout is in the works. Africa is another frontier, with a first push into South Africa.
For Canary Wharf, Revolut’s move is a welcome sign of life. The district has been grappling with vacancies as traditional banks cut back office space. A quick-growing fintech planting its headquarters in the heart of Docklands sends a diverse signal: the City may be changing, but London is still where global finance wants to set up shop.
