Bank: Revolut exceeds one million users in Spain | Economy

The Revolut neobank soars after the pandemic. It has been operating in Spain since 2017, but its growth in the last year has been exponential, surpassing the barrier of one million users, according to the company, which has 18 million customers worldwide. Specifically, it is almost at 1.1 million in the country in retail banking, to which another 500,000 companies (mainly small and medium-sized companies) should be added. “The number of customers has increased by more than 76% [de mayo de 2021 a este mayo] up to over a million users who have made at least one transaction”, explains Ignacio Zunzunegui, the firm’s head of growth for Spain and Portugal.

With these annual increases, which Revolut expects to continue this year (since January the rise is already 20%), the Spanish market is the fourth most important for the company. Increased brand awareness and an expanding portfolio of products are driving these gains. In fact, the use of its services has skyrocketed in the last year: card payments have risen 133% and deposits 83%. Precisely in deposits, given the imminent rise in interest rates announced by the European Central Bank, the neobank is studying launching interest-bearing deposits in Spain, something it already offers in the United Kingdom.

“Reaching one million users is a very important milestone for the company. It is in the spectacular increase in transactions that Spanish customers are increasingly using us as their day-to-day bank”, adds Zunzunegui, who highlights that Revolut wants to continue investing in Spain. “The goal is to maintain this rate of growth,” he insists. The British neobank launched Revolut Bank in the country in January (it operates in 29 markets), which allows its clients to have up to 100,000 euros of their deposits protected by the Lithuanian state-owned company Deposit and Investment Insurance.

As for the economic numbers, the company does not offer details only of the Spanish market, although it is still in the expansion phase and not making the investment made profitable. It has 300 workers in the country and two offices, one in Madrid and the other in Barcelona. And it also offers the possibility of investments in commodities (tangible materials such as gold), stocks and crypto assets. The customer profile that is most driven by the neobank, according to the firm itself, are users between 18 and 24 years old.

At a general level, Revolut will communicate its results for 2021 next month. The previous year saw a 57% rise in revenue, to 261 million pounds (about 300 million euros). Despite this improvement, the company was still not profitable: it lost 122 million pounds (140 million euros), red numbers that grew due to the drop in consumption during the pandemic. However, this does not stop or modify the company’s strategy, which plans to enter new markets soon such as Brazil, Mexico or India.