Ten years after launching as a prepaid travel card, Revolut delivered results in 2025 that few in traditional banking dared to imagine. With revenue climbing 46% to £4.5 billion and profit before tax surging 57% to £1.7 billion, Europe's most valuable fintech is no longer a disruptor — it is the new benchmark.
The Numbers — Record Revenue, Record Profits: Fifth Year Running
Revolut's 2025 annual report confirms what the market has long suspected: this is not a growth-at-all-costs story. The London-headquartered group posted its fifth consecutive year of profitability, with net profit reaching £1.3 billion (up from £0.8 billion in 2024), while simultaneously expanding its customer base, product offering, and global regulatory footprint.
Profit before tax margin improved to 38%, up from 35% the prior year — a rare combination of accelerating top-line growth and expanding margins in a year when the company materially increased hiring and marketing spend.
Key metrics 2024 vs 2025:
- Revenue: £3.1B → £4.5B (+46%)
- Profit Before Tax: £1.1B → £1.7B (+57%)
- Net Profit: £0.8B → £1.3B (+63%)
- Total Customer Balances: £30.2B → £50.2B (+66%)
- Retail Customers: 52.5M → 68.3M (+30%)
- Business Customers: 578K → 767K (+33%)
- Retail Transaction Volume: £177B → £277B (+56%)
- Loan Portfolio: ~£1B → £2.2B (+120%)
- PBT Margin: 35% → 38% (+3pp)
Context — The Fastest-Growing Financial Institution in the World
According to analysis by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of Revolut's investors, the company posted a 4-year compound annual growth rate of 76% — the highest among all major fintech peers tracked. In 2025 alone, revenue grew 57% in USD terms, outpacing Robinhood (52%), SoFi (36%), Adyen (34%), Nubank (27%), and Wise (11%).
4-year CAGR (2022–2025) — key peers:
- Revolut: 76%
- Nubank: 56%
- Robinhood: 49%
- Affirm: 36%
- Remitly: 36%
- SoFi: 33%
- Wise: 30%
- Adyen: 25%
Source: Revolut Annual Report 2025, a16z analysis.
At $7 billion in 2025 revenue (USD), Revolut has surpassed Nubank ($5.5B) and pulled well ahead of all European competitors. With a $75 billion valuation confirmed in a secondary share sale led by Coatue, Greenoaks, Dragoneer, and Fidelity — with participation from a16z, Franklin Templeton, T. Rowe Price, and NVIDIA's NVentures — Revolut remains Europe's most valuable private technology company by a wide margin.
Revenue Quality — A Diversified Model, Increasingly Fee-Driven
One of the most significant signals in the 2025 report is the composition of revenue. Fee-based revenues — card payments, subscriptions, wealth management, FX — now account for 76% of total turnover, up 4.2 percentage points year-on-year. This means Revolut's income is structurally less dependent on interest rate environments than most banks.
Revenue mix 2025 (% of £4.5B total):
- Card Payments: 22.2%
- Interest Income: 21.6%
- Subscriptions: 15.7%
- Wealth: 14.7%
- FX: 13.4%
- Other Income: 12.4%
Revolut now tracks 11 distinct product lines that each exceeded £100 million in revenue. Paid plan adoption grew 42%, savings balances more than doubled to £20.4 billion, and the loan portfolio doubled to £2.2 billion while ECL coverage held flat at 4.1%, suggesting disciplined underwriting.
"In Europe, 1 in 5 working-age adults now uses Revolut. In Spain, France, and Italy, nearly 1 in 3 newly opened bank accounts is a Revolut account." — Victor Stinga, CFO, Revolut Annual Report 2025
Growth Engine — 16 Million New Customers in a Single Year
Revolut added 16 million retail customers in 2025 — more than in any prior year — bringing the total to 68.3 million. As of early 2026, the company reports crossing 70 million users. Growth was particularly explosive in Southern Europe: Spain, France, and Italy saw Revolut become the bank account of choice, with market penetration metrics among the highest globally.
On the business side, 767,000 SMEs and corporates now use Revolut Business, up 33%. The segment accounts for 16% of total group revenue and grew at 53% — faster than the consumer side. In expansion markets like Singapore, Australia, and the US, Revolut Business posted over 140% growth year-on-year. Payment acceptance volumes tripled for the second consecutive year.
Total transaction volume across the group reached £1.3 trillion — a 65% increase year-on-year — reflecting Revolut's deepening role as a primary financial account rather than a secondary "travel card."
AI & Technology — GenAI Resolves 75% of Customer Support Interactions
The 2025 report marks the first year in which Revolut quantified the operational impact of generative AI at scale. By year-end, over 75% of customer support interactions were resolved autonomously by the company's AI-powered chatbot. Average retail resolution times fell by more than 40%, business support resolution times dropped over 50%, and customer NPS improved by 12 percentage points — all while overall headcount grew at a disciplined 10%.
Risk and compliance functions grew by 42%, with Revolut's fraud systems now analysing over 10 billion transactions annually. Over a third of the global workforce works in financial crime prevention, with AI models enabling a nearly 10x increase in daily case reviews.
Regulation — Licensed in 30 Countries, and Filing for a US Bank Charter
Regulatory execution was a defining theme of 2025. Revolut now operates as a licensed bank in 30 countries. New authorisations were obtained in Colombia, Mexico, India, and the UAE. A strategic acquisition in Argentina and plans for South Africa mark the group's first moves onto the African continent.
In March 2026, the UK's PRA lifted restrictions on Revolut's banking licence, allowing the group to begin migrating its 13 million UK customers to FSCS-protected deposit accounts. Also in March 2026, Revolut formally filed for a US national bank charter with the OCC and FDIC. Full banking operations in Mexico launched in January 2026.
"A decade into this journey, we have only just begun to show what is possible. We are still early — working towards 100 million daily active customers across 100 countries." — Nik Storonsky, CEO, Revolut Annual Report 2025
The US: The Biggest Battle of the Next 24 Months
If the UK banking licence was Revolut's home war finally won, the United States is the war that will define the next decade. In March 2026, Revolut formally filed for a US national bank charter — a move that, if successful, transforms the group from a licensed money transmitter into a fully-fledged American bank capable of offering FDIC-insured deposits, direct lending, and credit cards at scale.
The timing is not accidental. Revolut spent years building US market presence quietly — processing payments, onboarding customers, growing Revolut Business. Now, with the UK mobilisation completed and proof points of regulated banking across 30 countries, it arrives at the OCC application with a credibility it simply did not have three years ago.
The competitive landscape is brutal. Chime is circling an IPO. SoFi already holds a national bank charter and is profitable. JPMorgan Chase is investing billions in its own digital products. Yet Revolut's multi-product platform — savings, crypto, FX, stocks, business banking, lending — under a single app is genuinely differentiated in a US market where most neobanks have stayed narrow. Its 76% 4-year CAGR dwarfs every American fintech peer tracked by a16z. And its £10 billion investment commitment over the next five years signals it is not optimising for short-term margins.
The US bank charter process typically takes 18 to 24 months. If approved, Revolut Bank US, N.A. would mark the most significant transatlantic banking expansion by a European fintech in history. The battle starts now.
"We are moving from being a guest in the US banking system to a permanent resident — unlocking full-scale lending, credit cards, and direct FDIC insurance for millions of Americans." — Nik Storonsky, CEO, March 2026
What It Means for Traditional Banking
Revolut's 2025 results mark a structural shift in the European banking landscape. This is no longer a neobank story — it is a full-stack banking story, with growing lending, regulated savings, crypto (MiCA-licensed), trading (CFDs in 29 countries), mortgages, and business banking all operating under one roof.
For traditional Swiss and European banks, the most uncomfortable data point may be the market share figures from a16z's own survey: in Spain, 38% of newly opened accounts are Revolut accounts. In France, 37%. In Italy, 29%. These are not secondary accounts opened by travellers. They are primary banking relationships, with salary inflows, savings, and now lending migrating onto a single digital platform.
At a $75 billion valuation, Revolut is already worth more than many of Europe's largest listed banks. With a US bank charter application filed, a UK banking launch underway, and operations active across four continents, the 10-year-old challenger has arrived at a point where the word "disruptor" no longer quite fits — perhaps "new incumbent" is more accurate.
A personal note from the author
In the early days of neobanque.ch, one of the first articles I published tried to answer a deceptively simple question that thousands of people were Googling every month: how does Revolut actually make money? At the time, the business model was genuinely opaque to most users — free accounts, free FX, free card deliveries. It felt like magic, or a startup burning cash to grow.
That piece turned out to be one of the most-read things I wrote in those early days. It was one of the first signals that there was a real audience hungry to understand fintech beyond the marketing surface. Reading Revolut's 2025 annual report — £4.5 billion in revenue, 11 product lines over £100M, 76% four-year CAGR — it's worth going back to that original question. The answer has changed a lot.
Read the original article: https://medium.com/@luethistephane/how-revolut-is-making-money-7f4bb330a4fd
Sources: Revolut Group Holdings Ltd — Annual Report 2025 · assets.revolut.com/pdf/annualreport2025.pdf · Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) — Fintech Revenue Benchmarking Analysis 2025 · a16z.news/subscribe
For informational purposes only. Not financial advice.