Revolut partners with Visa to expand globally

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Revolut has announced the hire of 3500 new employees, and the goal of expanding into 24 new markets across the globe. To accomplish this goal, the company announced that they have made a deal with payment giant Visa to assist in meeting their goals.

Revolut is an up and coming digital-only account provider that is challenging the traditional street bank. They have grown rapidly since launching in July 2015, adding 8 million new customers in four years.

Despite the growth, they clearly have aspirations to rapidly expand even further, and this is where their deal with Visa comes into play. This agreement will allow them to move from their current markets in Europe and Australia to the U.S. and Singapore before the end of 2019. Canada and Japan will then be the next markets on their agenda. They will then look to expand in Latin America as well as other Asian markets.

In a statement, chief executive and founder of Revolut, Nikolay Storonsky, told Reuters, “We are around 1500 people now and by summer next year we plan to be around 5000.”

Visa will play a major role in this expansion. The purpose of adding the payment giant is that at least 75% of all Revolut cards will carry the Visa brand.

This should also help to increase the viability of the financial services company. In 2018, Revolut reported a £32.8 million ($40.3 million) net loss on revenues. That was more than double their loss in 2017, despite the fact that revenue climbed by more than 354% from the previous year.

This year, the company looks on target to make a profit, despite the fact that sales costs have jumped by 24.7%.

Recently, Revolut announced that they had planned a new round of funding that will occur before the end of this year. It is expected that they will seek $500 million from investors as they have set a recent valuation of the company at $1.7 billion. That makes it the most valuable unicorn company in Europe.

It is expected that this funding will be used directly to assist in the global expansion. That money will also be used to hire the additional 3500 employees, who will be stationed at 24 different markets across the globe by the time the expansion is completed.