British fintech Revolut revenue jumps, profit tumbles in 2022

By Elizabeth Howcroft and Andres Gonzalez

LONDON (Reuters) -Fintech company Revolut's revenue rose to a record 923 million pounds ($1.1 billion) in 2022, helped by interest income growth, but net profit fell sharply to 6 million pounds, the company said in delayed annual accounts on Friday.

Revolut, which ranked as the UK's most valuable start-up with around a $33 billion valuation in 2021, has applied for a UK banking licence but is still awaiting approval.

The company had said in September it had received permission to delay filing its annual accounts for a second year running. The auditor's report published on Friday said that it had been able to obtain sufficient evidence for 2022's figures.

A Revolut spokesperson said the fall in net profit was due to re-investing back into the business. Revolut said it had increased spending on new product launches and global expansion, as well as doubling its headcount.

Staff costs jumped, and spending on advertising and marketing more than doubled, the report said.

Revolut said income from interest on assets grew to 83 million pounds in 2022, up around 4,700% from just 1.7 million pounds in 2021.

Gerhard Kling, chair in finance at the University of Aberdeen, said the revenue was driven by the increase in net interest income, due to central banks having raised interest rates in 2022.

"This is not a big surprise because interest rates went up, so all the banks will benefit from that and their net interest margins will improve," Kling said.

Revolut made its first full-year profit in 2021, of 26 million pounds, helped by a boom in cryptocurrency trading. But retail investing in crypto and equity markets dropped "significantly" in 2022, interim CFO Victor Stinga said in Friday's report.

Revolut CFO Mikko Salovaara left the company in May.

The company's 2021 accounts were also delayed and when they were finally published in March 2023, the auditor BDO LLP said at the time it was not able to independently verify three-quarters of the 636 million pounds of revenue. The warning drew scrutiny from regulators.

Revolut said its application for a UK banking licence "remains ongoing", but gave no further details. The company had said in March it was "in the advanced stages" of the application.

The company's 2022 accounts included a number of revisions to figures in the 2021 accounts. For example, 2021's average monthly number of employees was revised to 2,365 from 4,655.

In the report, Revolut said that the changes were made "to align with presentation standards for the current year" and had no impact on net profit for the year.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Edited by Andres Gonzalez, Jan Harvey and Jane Merriman)