Nik Storonsky

Spear’s Review

The over-cautiousness of UK regulators is a common grumble among the new generation of financial entrepreneurs in the City. Yet few grumbles have been more widely reported than those to have emanated from Nik Storonsky’s company. 

The Russian-born physics graduate relocated to London in his early twenties, where he worked at Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse. In 2015 he left the trading desks to create an online payments app called Revolut. Within a year, the business had become one of London’s fastest-growing financial companies, with a dedicated Millennial customer base drawn to its promise of low-cost foreign exchange transfers. Valuations soon put the company in the ‘unicorn’ bracket, on the assumption that Revolut would be able to offer more conventional financial products in time.

In 2021 Storonsky applied for a retail banking licence with the aim of doing just that. It was a move that would begin a three-year back-and-forth struggle, with regulators objecting to everything from Revolut’s share structure to its inconsistent accounting processes. This July 2024 the saga ended, as regulators announced they had approved Revolut’s banking licence, allowing it to offer loans and mortgages to its 9 million UK customers, as well as providing full retail banking services (including guaranteeing customer deposits in line with UK regulations). An employee share sale subsequently valued the company at $45 billion, of which one-fifth still belongs to Storonsky.

As for relations between Revolut and the City establishment, the question is whether the fintech giant will be listed in London or New York. Storonsky has previously hinted at the latter, though such a decision would be a symbolic blow to his adopted home city.