Revolut’s co-founders have launched a blistering attack on the UK as a place to run a business, saying they wouldn’t consider listing in London.
(Bloomberg) — Revolut’s co-founders have launched a blistering attack on the UK as a place to run a business, saying they wouldn’t consider listing in London.
Nik Storonsky, chief executive officer, and Vlad Yatsenko, chief technology officer, said in an interview with the Times of London that the UK’s regulatory environment was holding them back and London’s appeal is on the wane after Brexit. The London-based firm applied for a UK banking license in 2021 and is waiting for a decision from the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority.
Storonsky criticized the process. “You wait for emails or letters for months,” he said. “This is not the business environment to operate in the modern world.”
A spokesperson for the PRA declined to comment.
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Storonsky also said that in the event of a public offering, the company would choose the US. “It’s hard to do business in the UK: the exchange is much less liquid so I just don’t see the point,” Storonsky said.
The extraordinary outburst comes at a difficult time for the firm. A shareholder in Revolut Ltd. has cut the value of its stake in the UK financial technology firm by 46%, the latest indicator of how investor caution is impacting the fintech sector.
And its delayed 2021 accounts showed that while the fintech made its first annual profit that year, its auditor was unable to satisfy itself on the “completeness and occurrence” of almost three-quarters of its revenue, an issue that Storonsky said is now fixed.
Read More: Revolut’s Valuation Cut by Schroders as Fintech Funding Wanes
The comments will embarrass the UK government, which has long touted its fintech sector — and Revolut in particular — as one of the UK’s crown jewels. It is also trying to energize London’s moribund capital markets in the wake of Brexit.
That exit from the European Union also drew criticism from the pair, with co-founder Yatsenko saying the UK had a talent problem post-Brexit. He said Revolut’s headcount in the UK hadn’t budged even as it had increased elsewhere in Europe.
“In the past a lot of people would come to London; it was the place to be,” he said. “That has now changed.”
–With assistance from William Shaw.
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