UK regulators are reviewing Revolut’s product approval process after its banking license

British regulators are reportedly checking how Revolut approves new products, with the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) issuing a section 166 earlier this year to examine the speed of its launches. For PSPs and high-risk merchants, the useful bit is simple: the faster a bank-like platform ships product, the more closely supervisors tend to look at the controls behind it.

1. The Financial Times reported on Oct. 27 that the PRA used a section 166 to test the strength of Revolut’s internal systems around product launches. A section 166 requires a company to appoint advisors to review its systems and controls; in practice, that usually means accountants and lawyers digging into where the process works and where it does not.
2. The order was reportedly made around the time Revolut received its long-awaited full banking license in March. The FT said the review is meant to assess the risks created by Revolut’s pace of product launches, rather than just the products themselves.
3. Revolut has more than 80 million customers and is valued at $115 billion. Its business model spans cryptocurrency trading, subscription services and card payments, and CEO Nik Storonsky has told staff to act like “self-guided missiles” with little oversight when launching new products.
4. This is not the first time regulators have had questions. Last year, the European Central Bank (ECB) imposed growth restrictions on Revolut after finding what it called “deficiencies” in the company’s product-approval process, and ordered a third-party review of its risk, compliance and legal functions governing new product launches in Europe.
5. The FT also reported last year that the Bank of England had delayed Revolut’s license because of concerns over whether its risk controls could keep up with expansion into new territories. Revolut and the Bank of England both declined to comment when contacted by PYMNTS.

The timing matters because Revolut announced its first credit product since becoming a licensed U.K. bank just one day before the report: unsecured personal loans from 2,000 pounds (around $2,700) to 25,000 pounds (around $33,000), repayable over one to five years. When a platform crosses from payments and trading into lending, supervisors tend to want to see the control stack, not just the launch calendar.