Revolut ramps up business offering in Visa tie-up
Revolut is set to scale up its offering to UK businesses in a fresh tie-up with payments juggernaut Visa.
The fintech’s business to business arm – dubbed Revolut Business – is set to introduce Titan, a premium business card, early next year as it pushes forward in its mission to create the ultimate all-in-one app.
“For a business, there’s even more reason to have a super app concept because you have even more tools that you’re having run in parallel,” James Gibson, general manager of Revolut Business, told City PM.
He added: “Business is a key part of Revolut’s growth story – it’s growing quicker than the core product and going forwards that’s one of our top focuses.”
The London-born digital lender said it would pump £3bn into the UK in September, as part of a global investment campaign.
“A third of the total investment was earmarked specifically for business,” Gibson said.
Challenger banks have dominated the small business lending space over recent years.
These firms now account for 60 per cent of the space, compared to 2019 where the four largest banks made up 90 per cent of lending.
Gibson said Revolut serves two thirds of the top 50 AI companies in the UK, as the fintech locks his vision on banking the next generation of start-ups and scale-ups.
Revolut boss hails UK entrepreneurship
He added the UK’s “strong entrepreneurial mindset” encouraged these investments and hailed the fintech’s home market as “dynamic and exciting”.
“Business is a key part of our strategy going forwards and a big focus for Nik [Storonsky] as well.”
Revolut Business notched $1bn in annualised revenue in the last year, processing over 4 million monthly payments.
The business’ operations have ballooned over the last year, as its monthly active businesses topped 250,000. This was fuelled by 20,000 new businesses joining each month.
The fresh launch – with the applications for the waitlist beginning today – will renew Revolut’s challenge to industry heavyweights, with Titan a rival to the likes of Signify and Amex.
Gibson said Revolut is positioned “well in the market.”
“We’re more at the premium end, but we think there’s going to be an appetite from these types of companies for a product.”
Lucy Demery, head of commercial solutions at Visa Europe, said the partnership would “bring together the best of our global scale”.
On the partnership, Gibson said: “If you compare [Visa] to some of the alternatives that are out there in the market, they don’t have the same payment acceptance levels at all merchants that Visa will.”