Revolut Partners with Visa to Expand Into North, South America and Asia

United Kingdom-based digital banking app Revolut announced a major partnership with Visa to expand its services globally across 24 new markets, including North America.

According to a Sept. 30 press release, this will bring 56 markets worldwide in total into Revolut’s reach.

North, Latin American and Asian markets

Per the release, the terms of the agreement stipulate that Revolut will primarily issue Visa-branded cards as it pursues its global expansion push.

Visa will enable the app to launch services initially in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and the United States.

This first group of jurisdictions will be followed by Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine and Vietnam.

The strengthened partnership between the two firms builds on their existing cooperation, which saw Revolut first issue Visa cards to its users across Europe in July 2017, says press release.

Revolut to hire 3,500 new staff members

In an interview with Reuters on Sept. 30, Revolut CEO and founder Nikolay Storonsky revealed that the firm will hire some 3,500 new staff members following the new deal, bringing its total workforce to around 5,000.

The Reuters report further indicates that the app’s launch in the U.S. and Singapore is expected by the end of this year, with Canada and Japan to follow. The timeline for expansion to Latin American and Asian markets has not been indicated and all launches remain subject to regulatory approval. 

Storonsky told Reuters that the average Revolut client holds around 1,000 euros ($1,090) in their account. With the app’s 8 million user base, this translates into a total deposit balance of roughly 8 billion euros ($8.74 billion).

Earlier this year, Storonksy was prompted to publicly refute allegations of money laundering breach and negligence by the company. A period of negative publicity was followed by reports from U.K. broadsheets alleging Revolut executives deliberately decommissioned Anti-Money Laundering software in 2017. 

The reports further claimed that the firm attracted the attention of the U.K.’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

In late 2017, Revolut rolled out support for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC). 

In June, Visa was named as one of the firms to have backed Facebook’s Libra stablecoin project via its membership in a newly-created independent governance consortium — the Libra Association. 

Visa CEO Alfred F. Kelly Jr. subsequently emphasized that the 20-odd companies involved with Libra had reportedly only declared their interest via a nonbinding letter of intent.