UK's Revolut gets French bank licence in European expansion drive

By Elizabeth Howcroft and Inti Landauro

PARIS, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Britain's Revolut said on Monday it had secured a French banking licence, marking a significant step in the fintech's European expansion plans and a development its CEO Nik Storonsky has previously said could help it gain a U.S. licence.

London-based Revolut, which plans to make Paris its "Western Europe HQ" and shift customers away from its Lithuanian entity, has emerged as the largest and most successful of the European challengers to traditional banks which sprang up in the 2010s.

In France, where its licence was granted by the ACPR banking regulator and the European Central Bank, it competes with the digital arms of the country's biggest banks, including Societe Generale's BoursoBank.

Revolut can already offer banking services in the European Union by "passporting" its Lithuanian licence, but being regulated in France would also allow it to offer services tailored to local customers including loans and regulated savings products, the company told Reuters in April.

Its profit has so far been driven by fee income and crypto, but it is looking to increase its lending and other products.

Revolut declined to comment on a Bloomberg report last month which said its French hub would likely face restrictions on new products, including mortgages, after the ECB reportedly imposed these measures on its Lithuanian entity last year.

"The licence enables us to operate as a bank across the EU. We do not comment on our regulatory arrangements," a spokesperson said by email.

FRANCE EXPANSION

Revolut, which received a British banking licence in March, has already pledged to spend $1.1 billion on expanding in France, hired former SocGen CEO Frederic Oudea as its Western Europe chairman and signed a 10-year lease in Paris.

It said on Monday it plans to hire more than 600 people across Western Europe, of which 400 will be in France.

Customers in France will be transferred to the French entity first, followed by Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, said Revolut, which has more than 75 million customers but no physical branches.

It has started a share sale at a $115 billion valuation, a source said in July, which would make it worth more than banks like SocGen and Britain's Barclays. 

(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Elizabeth Howcroft, Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Alexander Smith)