[3] The company was founded in July 2015 by British-Russian businessman Nikolay Storonsky and British-Ukrainian software engineer Vlad Yatsenko and operates in 48+ countries.

[7] Revolut was founded on the 1 July 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, offering individuals in the United Kingdom and European Economic Area (EEA) a smartphone app linked to a pre-paid Mastercard to spend money abroad using interbank foreign exchange rate.

[16] Building on its initial success, Revolut then launched a subscription-based app in June 2017 available to businesses across the UK and Europe.

[17][18] Following the launch of Revolut Business, the company raised $66 million during a Series B round in July 2017 with the goal to expand across Asia and the United States.

[21][22] Until now, Revolut was only operating as an electronic money institution in the United Kingdom under the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

[29][30] Following the acquisition of a banking license, the company announced plans in September 2019 for expansion into 24 new markets across the United States, Asia, and other regions, supported by agreements with Visa and Mastercard.

In January 2022, they started operating as a bank in 10 additional European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.

[45] The Financial Times reported in July 2023 that Revolut had lost $20 million to organized criminal groups due to a flaw in its US payment system between late 2021 and early 2022.

[46] Later that year, Revolut announced that they would stop offering cryptocurrency trading services to their US customers due to the "evolving regulatory environment" as the Securities and Exchange Commission intensified regulations regarding certain crypto assets and platforms.

[58][59][60][61] It was also reported that, despite ongoing uncertainty regarding the UK banking license, the company swung to a £25m loss in 2022 after giving out higher wages to staff.

[63] In August, the company was seen to be preparing for a potential IPO on the Nasdaq in the United States with an expected valuation of approximately £45 billion, although UK politicians were said to be pushing for a London listing.

[67][68][69] A report in October 2024 found that Revolut was named in more fraud complaints in the UK than any major bank in the country, sparking a debate on the effectiveness of its security controls.

[70][71][72] It was stated that many customers had to turn to the financial ombudsman service after falling victim to fraud earlier that year.

[78][79] In July 2021, Revolut's Series E raised US$800 million from investors, including SoftBank Group and Tiger Global Management, at a US$33 billion valuation.

[91] Revolut will soon be able to directly take customer deposits as part of the FSCS scheme following its approval for a UK banking licence.

Revolut has been subject to criticism and many controversies in the past, such as issues with customer support and long-lasting lockouts,[92] as well as anti-money laundering compliance failures,[93] lack of support for defrauded customers,[94][95] and even claims of ties to the Russian government[96] which the company strongly denied.

[99] In June 2020, Wired published a further exposé of Revolut's dismissal of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which employees, particularly in Kraków, were given the choice of being terminated for underperformance or a mutual agreement to leave the company voluntarily, in order to reduce the headline number of 62 redundancies announced by Revolut.

Revolut, in common with traditional financial institutions, uses algorithms to identify money laundering, fraud, and other criminal activity.

Under certain anti-money laundering legislation, if suspicious activities are being investigated, bank staff are not allowed to tell customers why their accounts have been frozen.

[101] It has been reported since 2020 that Revolut's algorithms suspended accounts for weeks or months at a time after unusual activity was detected.

[102][103] Revolut's policies require customers whose accounts were suspended to request a resolution via in-app chat support.

[104][103][102] Revolut said that "the system is programmed to temporarily lock an account and place it in a queue, until one of our compliance agents can review the case".