Revolut Wants "Effectively Zero Risk" as a Bank. That Means Almost No Lending

Revolut plans to keep lending to a small fraction of its deposits, even after winning banking licenses in the UK and France this year. Chief Executive Nik Storonsky set out the approach in an interview with the Financial Times published today (Monday).Its loan-to-deposit ratio stands at 6%, according to the newspaper, against roughly 100% at a typical bank. Storonsky said Revolut does not plan to go beyond 10% to 20%, and that loans it does make will be sold on, either whole or through securitizations.Most banks earn a large share of their income by lending out deposits. At the end of 2025, Revolut reported a loan book of £2.2 billion against customer balances of £50.2 billion, a ratio of about 4.4% by FinanceMagnates.com's calculation, while fees made up 76% of its revenue.The deposits are there. In Ireland, four in five people already use Revolut, the FT reported, though becoming their main bank is a separate test.Licenses Built for LendingThe Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) cleared Revolut to launch its UK bank in March, ending 20 months of restrictions. Bloomberg reported at the time that the license would open the way to more lending.In August, Revolut secured a full French banking license, its second bank in the EU after Lithuania.The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) then gave conditional approval for a US national bank charter on September 3.UK rival Monzo has taken a different route. Its lending income rose 39% in the year to March 2026 and helped lift revenue by the same rate to £1.7 billion, the bank reported in May.Lessons From Lehman and Credit SuisseStoronsky traded equity derivatives at Lehman Brothers and then Credit Suisse before founding Revolut in 2015. He told the FT that Lehman's trading book could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in a single day, and that Credit Suisse was held back by infighting."You just shouldn't take a risk in complex things," he said.[#highlighted-links#] The Revolut model, he added, is designed "to have effectively zero risk for the business." He put Revolut's return on equity at 40% to 50% after deducting excess capital, about double that of its best-performing rivals, a figure he gave himself.Sanctions Slow the Global PushRevolut says it has 80 million customers in 40 countries and wants to operate as a consumer bank in more than 100. Storonsky told the FT that sanctions and geopolitical tension limit what a financial firm can do in many markets.He also acknowledged that vetting customers had been particularly difficult. Revolut was fined €3.5 million by the Bank of Lithuania in April 2025 over its anti-money laundering controls.Earlier this month, Revolut said a fraudster posing as a government agency had obtained customer data through false information requests. The FT put Revolut's valuation at $115 billion. This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.