Exclusive: “reinventing The Rules” – Rory Tanner, Revolut In ‘the Fintech Magazine’

Revolut was born a rebel but now that the UK is shaking up financial regulation, the neo is making its voice heard

The UK government is loosening the ties of regulation, recognising that the complex, penalty-focussed system – tightened as a protective reaction to the global financial crisis in 2008 – now poses a threat to the growth of the country’s lucrative financial services sector.

Most recently, it axed the Payment Services Regulator (PSR), which has existed since 2015, in a major deregulatory push that will see this watchdog merged with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to create ‘one port of call’ to simplify regulatory engagement for companies. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is said to have told his cabinet ministers that they must take ‘responsibility for decisions rather than outsourcing them to regulators’. All of which is music to the ears of digital banking platform Revolut.

Founded in the UK 10 years ago, it has risen to become the most valuable tech company in Europe, worth an estimated $45billion, by upsetting the status quo. It was born uttering the words ‘why not?’. Revolut by name and revolutionary by nature, it carved out a reputation for highlighting barriers to financial innovation. But it famously took three years to persuade regulators in its home market to issue a banking licence, granted (with conditions) in 2024, followed by a trading licence in November later that same year.

Never known for holding back on its opinions, the neobank’s growth and new status has given it greater clout and confidence. Just a couple of days before news broke of the PSR’s demise, it launched a legal battle against it, in collaboration with Visa and Mastercard, over proposed caps on interchange fees, which are a key part of Revolut’s revenue, earning it £605million in 2023.

Rory Tanner, the neo’s Head of UK Government Affairs, believes that before the recent change of political emphasis, UK regulators were losing their way.

“There are cases where they are focussing on the wrong things, like the recent FCA proposals around naming and shaming that led to the Treasury intervening and siding with the industry, and the PSR’s proposals around capping European Economic area-to-UK cross-border interchange fees, which we think is the wrong approach because artificial price caps damage competition in card payments,” he says. “We want the focus to be on improving competition and creating economic growth, not acting as a barrier to it.

“To give them credit, the regulators are now doing these things, but we want more clarity around the timing of the delivery. It’s important the UK is not slower than other jurisdictions.”

Tanner’s job title speaks to the journey this neobank has been on as it fought for validity at home, while simultaneous expanding into Europe, America, Asia and the US in pursuit of customers. Just a few months after Tanner’s appointment in 2023, his boss, Revolut co-founder Nik Storonsky, publicly criticised the UK as being a difficult country to do business in.

Tanner is now preparing for conversations on how to make it easier – or risk the UK’s position as the world’s biggest net exporter of financial services (creating a £92billion trade surplus) being eroded.

“There are certainly areas in which progress has stalled and even cases where other jurisdictions have overtaken the UK for regulatory innovation,” says Tanner. “Open banking is a good example. In 2019 the UK was the best in the world and the first to do it, but in the last couple of years it’s been beset by bureaucracy and politics with not much progress, although some is emerging.

“If the UK Data (Use and Access) Bill passes, it provides an opportunity for the principles of open banking to enter other areas of finance, like insurance, investments, credit and pensions, that could benefit from more competition and innovation. 2025 is going to be really important for open banking in the UK [and] over the next three, four, five years, open finance is potentially a revolutionary piece of regulatory delivery for the UK, and hopefully for Revolut as well.”

He also believes the FCA’s timelines for the launch of a crypto asset roadmap – currently pushed to at least 2027 – and the UK’s New Payments Architecture (NPA), need more urgency.

“There are areas in which progress has stalled and even cases where other jurisdictions have overtaken the UK for regulatory innovation”

“It’s really damaged our reputation as an innovator and trailblazer that the latter has stalled indefinitely and the industry now looks to PIX in Brazil or UPI in India as truly 21st century payment ecosystems,” he adds. “And if we don’t soon have pay-by bank as a mainstream option for e-commerce, it will have absolutely been a failure.”

When it comes to fraud prevention, too, he believes the UK is falling behind. Tanner points to other countries that are already developing cross-sector data-sharing regimes, involving not just payment service providers, but also law enforcement, government, telcos and tech firms.

“Delivering a framework for cross-sector data sharing to create a truly unified approach is really important to us,” says Tanner. “Singapore and Australia are examples of countries that have done that but the UK has not and, from a regulatory standpoint, I would question why.”

Later this year, Revolut staff will move from the neo’s existing headquarters in London’s Canary Wharf to much bigger offices in a neighbouring development that, appropriately for a challenger that’s always asking questions, is called YY.

“What most defines us is our ability to solve market failures, which is exactly what we set out to do back in 2015,” says Tanner. “People were getting ripped off spending or sending money abroad, so we created a multi-currency account with zero foreign exchange fees. That’ll define us for the next 10, 20, 50 years because that mindset is how we approach every single area we move into.

“Whether payments, banking, trading or crypto, we relentlessly focus on products and what the customer wants, and delivering best-in-class solutions.”

The popularity this has generated among its customers is clear.

“Revolut initially gained customers from people recommending our card to friends going abroad,” adds Tanner. “The next phase of our journey is consolidating those customers so they’re also using Revolut to pay their bills or their friends. Our objective is to become a primary bank, not just in the UK but in all our key markets, and we believe we have an opportunity to do that in the coming years.

“Because, after being around for a decade, neobanks like us have become more popular and the sector is now maturing – catering for tens of millions of customers, not thousands.

“We’re looking at gaining millions more, so need a different approach. While retaining our commitment to product, technology and innovation, we can’t just rely on word-of-mouth anymore to reach our goal of 100 million customers, because the competition is really fierce and we’re not just going up against the incumbent banking sector, but other fintech competitors who are likely to come out of Europe or the US in the near future.

“From a marketing perspective, we have to go for the big things rather than niche areas. Hence we’re sponsoring the NBA Paris Games and have a skyscraper in Canary Wharf.”

To further broaden this appeal, Revolut is widening its offering.

“Last year, we launched RevPoints to compete with Amex and others. It’s on debit card spending, so if customers can’t get credit because they’re vulnerable or underserved, they still have access to it. Democratising services allows us to compete and diversify our revenue stream so we’re protected from any shocks in the future, which is a really important part of our model. In our last annual report, there was not a single product or market that accounted for more than 30 per cent of our revenue.

“We have a combination of product excellence, ambition and the confidence to provide the best options for our customers.”

Revolut’s neighbours in London’s financial district include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Santander. The neo-with-attitude has definitely grown up, but it clearly doesn’t plan to dial it down any time soon.

This article was published in The Fintech Magazine Issue 34, Page 24-25

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