Revolut’s chief executive launched another torrent of criticism on Sunday when he blasted the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) delays in granting it a banking license, which the company sees as crucial to offering loans and other services to its 5.8 million customers. from United Kingdom.
“Ultimately it’s not really us, it’s generally the banking crisis we see right now that makes regulators more cautious,” he told the Financial Times.
The rival challenger places Monzo and Starling have full UK banking licenses, unlike Revolut. The company has been filing an application with the FCA and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) for approximately two years.
Revolut became the UK’s most valuable fintech in 2021 after a funding round earned him a $33 billion price tag. Last year it overtook Checkout.com as Europe’s most valuable startup after the payments company saw its valuation cut.
However, some of Revolut’s investors have since reduced their holdings, and Schroders reportedly cut the value of his £10.1m stake by almost half in April. The writedown suggests that Revolut’s total value may have been reduced to around $17.7 billion, a loss of $15 billion over two years.
Revolut’s finances have been in the spotlight in recent months after it fell behind in filing its annual accounts with Companies House. following concerns raised by your auditor.
BDO, the UK’s fifth-largest accountancy firm, said in March: “We were unable to satisfy ourselves as to the completeness and occurrence of certain revenue for the year ended December 31, 2021.”
Auditors said they were unable to verify £477m of Revolut’s £636m in sales for the year.
BDO said Revolut’s internal IT systems “were unable to provide sufficient adequate assurance” on revenue streams from areas of the business, including its forex and wealth department, which includes revenue from cryptocurrency trading.
BDO did not issue any warnings about Revolut’s ability to continue as a going concern. Auditors were able to verify 100% of client cash balances held on behalf of clients with third parties.
On Friday, Storonsky accused the regulator of putting pressure on BDO and said the IT problem had now been fixed.
“Regulators put pressure on BDO and as a result it was much more rigorous and risk averse, so it delayed the accounts, because the regulator was on its back,” he said.