UK challenger bank Revolut has launched a bank in Lithuania after having achieved a European banking licence in the tail end of 2018, but says it might just be the beginning of further expansion across the continent, according to Fintech Global.
The new bank will be offering customer deposits that are insured in the same way as other banks by the state deposit insurance. The bank already has over 300,000 customers in the country who are now able to upgrade from their e-money accounts to bank deposit accounts through the app. Revolut claims that the process will only take a few moments.
In the next few months, Revolut Bank is planning to roll out consumer lending services, including consumer loans and credit cards. It is also looking to launch its Revolut Junior accounts for children and young people between the ages of seven and 17 in Lithuania. This last tool was first unveiled in March 2020 and is designed to teach children to manage their own budgets while giving parents control and oversight of their children’s spending.
“Revolut has become a trusted household name in Lithuania,” said Virgilijus Mirkės, CEO for Revolut Bank. “We have achieved this by solving our customers’ problems, treating them fairly and being at the forefront of financial innovation. We are incredibly excited to take the next step in our mission to build a world-class bank for our customers in Lithuania.”
Revolut intends to passport its Lithuanian banking license to other Central and Eastern European countries later in the year, with Lithuania acting as a hub for the region.
Today, Revolut claims to have over ten million users around the world, making it one of the leading challenger banks in the world, second only in terms of users to Brazilian rival Nubank that has a whooping 20 million customers.
Revolut has lost eight top executives since March
Meanwhile, Revolut is on the lookout for a new chairperson to lead its UK board who can “help [it] obtain a banking licence”, before the year ends. The fintech already has a Lithuanian banking licence which it obtained in December 2018, but has been operating in the UK the past five years without a UK licence.
It seems that obtaining and especially keeping experienced managers is a serious challenge for the company. As the fintech seeks to hire new executives to fuel its aggressive growth, Revolut has also lost eight executives since March when the coronavirus began, as reported by Fintech Futures.
According to their LinkedIn profiles, North America general manager Dan Westgarth and lead data scientist Abhi Thanendran have both left the firm, having joined it in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Global head of employer branding Anca Pintilie and regulatory reporting manager Alexander Gratz have also left the firm in recent weeks. Pintilie leaves just eight months after she joined, prior to spending nearly five years at Oracle.
These departures come days after it emerged Revolut had lost its deputy chief financial officer Stefan Wille, and its interim head of finance Anne Borzenko.
Earlier this month it also emerged that the head of wealth and trading André Mohamed had left, and in March the fintech’s just seven-month strong chief financial officer David MacLean announced his departure due to “personal reason”.
Increasing pressure to meet targets
The high staff turnover is a result of increasing pressure to meet targets in a bid to become profitable before year end despite the ongoing economic crisis.
“Their goals are the same, despite a much more difficult environment, so obviously the pressure being felt is higher,” one source said.
Another source said the fintech was undergoing a “massive churn” at the minute, and that staff cannot afford to make mistakes.
The fintech needs to cut 30% of its expenditure on salaries to meet its goals. Revolut says the high staff turnover is natural for a company of its size and growth rate. The fintech is still yet to lay off or furlough any staff.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
