Revolut, a digital banking platform located in London, is working to expand into decentralized crypto wallets and is also exploring into the mortgage industry. According to its CEO Nik Storonsky, the business pursues its goal of becoming a “superapp.”
Revolut, which already provides payments, savings accounts, cryptocurrency trading, and stock trading, is focusing on extending its remittance capabilities and introducing a purchase now, pay later service in the near future. But, according to the CEO, the fintech firm still has work to do to become an all-in-one place for financial services.
“For example… decentralized wallets, and enabling deposits, withdrawals of crypto [and] staking, lending — that’s another piece that we’re missing and we’re working on,” Storonsky said on Reuter’s report. He went on to say that the company should think about growing into mortgages because home loans are such an essential aspect of consumer financial life.
While superapps like WeChat from China have taken hold in other areas of the world, all-in-one platforms have eluded the US and Europe.
Revolut is also launching new remittance corridors, allowing its customers in the United States to transmit money across borders in about 30 minutes. In January, the business enabled fee-free remittances to Mexican bank accounts, as well as rapid transfers from the United States to Brazil, Chile, and South Korea.
According to Storonsky, “It’s amazing, because no one in the world can do it. If you check WorldRemit or [Wise] or Western Union, not a single one of them has this capability of instant of fee-free money transfer.”
In its goal to become a global financial superapp, Revolut is not the only one. From Amazon to Walmart to IKEA, global corporations are removing the conventional financial intermediary and replacing it with software from internet firms to provide customers with everything from banking to credit to insurance.
Embedded finance, a name for firms that integrate software to offer financial services, implies Amazon can let users check out and “buy now, pay later.”
While banks are still behind the majority of transactions, investors and experts believe that traditional lenders risk being pushed farther away from the front end of the financial chain. That means they’ll be more away from the masses of data others are gathering on their customers’ preferences and behaviors – data that might be essential in providing them a competitive advantage over banks in the financial sector.