It’s an announcement that should cause a stir in the world of online banking: UK neobank Revolut is preparing to launch a real estate lending offering. A press release issued this Wednesday indicated that the bank was in the recruitment phase to prepare for this new launch, but without mentioning a timetable in the slightest.

Having expanded IBANs (banking identities) domestically (which requires the establishment of branches), in France, Spain and soon in Germany, then launched a consumer credit offering and, most recently, interest-bearing accounts, Revolut continues its strategy to diversify its offering with the aim of becoming the go-to bank for his client.

This is confirmation of a change in strategic direction. We remember that Revolut was first launched in 2015 with the initial idea of ​​providing currency services to tourists, especially the famous Erasmus students. Diversification is important during a health crisis. Fintech has enriched its applications with new services, financial with crypto trading platforms, but also extra financial, such as promotions, hotel reservations, not forgetting chat. The idea then is to create a “super app”, like China’s WeChat, to keep customers on the app as long as possible. The goal then is to build an audience, even an audience, even if that means making money later.

Amazon finance

Rising interest rates, gaining a worldwide customer base – 30 million customers worldwide, including 2.5 million in France (at the end of May) – have undoubtedly prompted Revolut to change its approach. is to become the main bank. Changes were made silently for a year.

“We have a functioning growth engine and we want to follow through on our ideas to simplify finance, taking into account the ambition to become a kind of financial Amazon,” Antoine Le Nel, global vice president of Revolut, in charge of development, told us this summer. So Revolut tests, in a fairly empirical way – successfully, unsuccessfully – products and services.

“We have a very detailed approach”, confirmed the manager. But real estate credit remains the bank’s flagship product, and is undoubtedly the most complex to set up, but in a context that may hold promise for challengers. All these new banking product launches also remind us that Revolut is a bank, and not a neobank as is still widely considered. At least in Europe, because in England, its country of origin, fintech is still waiting for banking approval.

Relations with British regulators are notoriously poor. Moreover, according to financial times, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is investigating whether Revolut allowed money to flow out of accounts flagged as suspicious.

Unlimited ambition

This all-out attack requires large resources, especially human resources. Revolut has more than doubled its workforce in one year to 7,000 employees and 80% of its recruitment is related to customer account management and the fight against fraud. Everything is moving very quickly in Revolut’s expansion.

The fintech claims 100,000 account openings per month in France – as many as BoursoBank (formerly Boursorama) and claims that its financial app is the most downloaded in Europe, with 1.5 million downloads per month, ahead of PayPal. “We have more accounts opened in Spain than Santander Bank! “, even rejoices Antoine Le Nel, who is based in Barcelona.

Ambition clearly has no limits at Revolut: the fintech targeting 100 million customers worldwide, all in one mobile app, has just launched in New Zealand and is carefully preparing for its next launch in India!