The Revolut logo is displayed on a smartphone and a PC screen.
Pavlo Gonchar | SOPA pictures | LightRocket via Getty Images
LONDON – Revolut, a UK-based online banking start-up, is planning to expand into India.
The London-based company announced on Thursday that it had recruited Paroma Chatterjee, a former manager of Indian startups Flipkart, Via.com and LendingKart, to lead its operations in the country.
Revolut will invest around $ 25 million in the Indian market and intends to launch its app there by 2022, a company spokesperson told CNBC. The company, valued at $ 5.5 billion in its most recent financing round, has raised more than $ 900 million from investors to date.
“We look forward to changing the way people in India access and manage their money as we bring our products and services to more people around the world,” said Nik Storonsky, CEO and Co-Founder of Revolut.
“India is a core market in our expansion strategy with a huge talent pool. We are excited to use this talent pool to help Revolut get stronger.”
Revolut said it would hire 300 people in India. It has previously recruited Heads of Operations and Legal and aims to take on a variety of other roles in HR, marketing and compliance.
Global expansion
With a population of 1.3 billion people and a growing adoption of digital payments, India would be a huge market for Revolut.
The company, founded in 2015, started with a travel-oriented service for cheap money transactions, but has since introduced other functions such as stock trading and cryptocurrencies.
It is one of several digital banks in Europe that have set themselves the goal of taking over large established companies with branchless banks. Others are the British peer Monzo, the German rival N26 and the US start-up Chime.
Revolut, which has already expanded into Asia in countries like Japan and Singapore, is hoping to tap into the fast-growing Indian remittance market. The company is in talks with the Reserve Bank of India and a number of local banks to secure the necessary licenses and partnerships to get started.
If launched in India, Revolut would also compete with SoftBank-backed fintech Paytm, which is used by many Indians to make payments by scanning QR codes.
Revolut says its goal is to become a global bank, and it even has ambitions to gain a foothold in China, a highly competitive fintech market. The company is reportedly in talks to raise new funds, which could be worth up to $ 15 billion in a round, as it pushes its international expansion strategy.
The company has had mixed successes in North America. It was launched in the US last year, has attracted 150,000 customers since then, and is now aiming for a banking charter in the country.
However, Revolut later announced in February that it would withdraw from Canada 18 months after it first tried its service.
Revolut, which lost £ 106.5 million in 2019, recently told CNBC that it managed to break even in November. The company is expected to release its 2020 financial results before the end of spring.
