Revolut seeks Australian banking license

Digital bank Revolut is seeking yet another banking license, now it has applied in Australia.

The company is engaged in talks with Australian regulator to be allowed to take customer deposits, country head Matt Baxby said on Friday.

Read also: DriveWealth, Revolut’s trading provider, received $450M investment

“Our mission is to directly challenge the incumbent banks that … offer a suboptimal user experience, and their business models are really quite reliant on customer apathy,” Baxby told a parliamentary committee.

“We’ve engaged with APRA (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) and are intent on filing an application to become an Aussie bank.”

Australia’s banking system is heavily dominated by “high street” banks that control about 80% of the sector.

Namely: Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank .

It is always a crucial decision if the challenger bank gets the license or not. Revolut has terminated its activities in Canada this year after not receiving a Canadian banking license.

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And Canadian system is very similar to the Australian one.

Since Revolut launched in Australia last year, over 100,000 people have signed for services including pre-paid card payments, foreign exchange and crypto trading, Baxby added.

After Softbank lead an $800 million investment into Revolut, the companys’ valuation recently climbed to $33 billion.