British online bank Revolut said Thursday it more than doubled net profit last year to £790 million ($1.1 billion) as customer numbers surged particularly in France, its new second-biggest market.
“We not only accelerated our customer growth, welcoming nearly 15 million new users globally, but critically, we also saw customers engaging more deeply by adopting a wider range of our services,” chief executive Nik Storonsky said in a statement.
The fintech said it grew customers to 52.5 million worldwide, up 38 percent compared with 2023.
It gained more than one million customers in France, bringing the total to over five million.
“I think by end of next year we should reach 10 million customers in France, because right now we are getting 200,000 customers per month,” Revolut’s chief growth and marketing officer, Antoine Le Nel, told AFP.
The company, which posted its first profit in 2021, saw its revenue surge 72 percent last year to £3.1 billion.
Chief financial officer Victor Stinga highlighted the jump in revenue from business customers, with the “more nascent” part of the group reaching 15 percent of total turnover.
Revolut, which launched in 2015, aims to compete with European banking giants and is targeting 100 million customers in 100 countries.
However, its rapid growth has also drawn criticism in recent years regarding its ability to comply with financial regulations, particularly those aimed at combating fraud and money laundering.
In early April, the bank which operates in the European Union under a Lithuanian license, was fined 3.5 million euros for failures in its anti-money laundering control processes.
Stinga said the fintech is investing in the fight against financial crime, telling AFP that the penalty handed down by eurozone member state Lithuania concerned events “very much historic in nature”.
Valued at $45 billion last year, Revolut obtained a “restricted” UK banking licence in July.
It hopes to obtain a full licence this year, which would allow it to lend money as well as take deposits in the UK, and is seen as a gateway to gaining bank licences around the world.
