Why is Revolut everywhere? The story of the neobank that took off by dodging fees

At El Prat airport, just before boarding the plane, Revolut is everywhere. The logo of this bank appears in vinyls on the boarding bridges, in flashing advertisements in the terminal corridors, and also on ATMs that allow you to get one of their cards in a few minutes. The promise is simple: pay with different currencies in any country and reduce the commissions that have traditionally accompanied travel. The same scene is repeated on the other side of the journey. In cities like Budapest, Lisbon, Paris, Milan or Amsterdam, it is increasingly common for someone, between coffees, taxis, dinners, and transport tickets, to take out their mobile, open the app, and pay with Revolut's virtual card.Neobanks are on the rise. They are entities born on mobile that have taken advantage of the fatigue with traditional banking, the expansion of digital payments, and the normalization of traveling without cash. Revolut is today one of its great exponents. In 2025, it closed with 68.3 million individual clients, 30% more than the previous year, and a turnover of 5.2 billion euros. Now, the company no longer wants to be just the card that many activate when they go on a trip, but the main bank for its users. In this offensive, Barcelona plays a prominent role: after opening its technology hub for Southwest Europe, Revolut will inaugurate the first physical store in the world there. It is an almost paradoxical move for a company that has grown by promising that its bank would fit inside a mobile phone.But where does Revolut come from? Who is behind this branchless bank that has managed to sneak into the pockets of millions of people? The answer can be found in London in 2015.The drama of commissions

The story begins in the British capital eleven years ago. The protagonist is Nik Storonsky, a former trader with Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse used to moving between currencies, markets, and airports. Like many other travelers, Storonsky had suffered the drama of commissions: returning from a trip and discovering that the bank had charged him more than he expected for paying, withdrawing money, or exchanging currencies. Moving money around the world continued to be slow, expensive, and not very transparent. That's why he imagined a multi-currency card that would allow spending and transferring money abroad with less friction than traditional banking. Vlad Yatsenko, a computer engineer with experience in large investment banks, soon joined the project. Today, Revolut is one of the most valuable technology companies in Europe.The official launch of Revolut took place in July 2015. The initial proposal was very specific: an application and a card designed to spend money abroad with competitive exchange rates and without the small print that had often accompanied traditional banking. It was very well received. In fact, by 2016, Revolut had already reached 300,000 customers and had raised 15 million dollars in a funding round. It was still a young fintech, but it had already found a market niche.From here, Revolut accelerated. In 2017 it launched Revolut Business, the premium plan and the first cryptocurrency operations; in 2018 it obtained the banking license from the Bank of Lithuania and raised 250 million dollars; and in 2019 it already had 7.8 million customers and began to expand outside of Europe, entering Australia and Singapore. The pandemic further pushed digitization: in 2020 it surpassed 11 million customers, raised 580 million dollars, and landed in the United States and Japan. In just five years, the card against travel fees had already begun to resemble a global bank.In 2021, Revolut raised 800 million dollars in a new round and launched services linked to travel and expense management. In 2022, it already surpassed 26 million individual customers; in 2023, it entered Brazil and New Zealand and began offering local IBANs in markets like Spain. In 2024, it reached 52.5 million users and was valued at 45 billion dollars. In 2025, coinciding with its tenth anniversary, it made another leap: it reached 68.3 million individual customers, opened its first own ATMs in Spain, and received a valuation of 75 billion dollars. Today, the fintech that was born to avoid travel commissions is starting to play in the league of big global banks.