Nikolay Storonsky : Founder of Revolut, the Amazon of Banking
No one better than a traveller would know the worth of every single cent as he/she has to pay an extra fee on the exchange of currency when crossing borders. This is not only the problem of a traveller but many others, who need to get their currencies exchanged, and that too, over different exchange fees. Would it not be better if we get a personalised and accurate platform that would help us with the foreign spendings and the currency exchanges, so that the whole process remains transparent, and we always pay the right amount?
Nikolay Storonsky, a British-Russian entrepreneur, went through the same problem, every time he planned vacations out of the country. But, in the end, he came up with Revolut. Revolut is a banking app that helps you with your finances and spendings across the globe.
Early Life
Nikolay Storonsky was born on 21 July 1984 in Moscow, USSR, to Nikolay Mironovich Storonsky. His father is the Deputy General Director of Science for Gazprom Promgaz, Russia.
Storonsky, after completing his school education from a public school, joined the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, where he completed a master’s degree in Physics. During his time at the university, he also participated in various swimming competitions and became a state-level swimming champion. Later, he went to the New Economic School in Moscow, where he completed another master’s degree in economics.
Storonsky started his career as a trader and worked for Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers.
Founding Revolut
Storonsky loved travelling and even went abroad for small trips. But every time he went out of the country, he faced issues with the currency exchange and their hiked fees. This annoyed Storonsky a lot and wanted to find a better solution for the same.
After a lot of searching and brainstorming, Storonsky reached to a conclusion that he should develop a system that could help people with their finances. So, along with Vlad Yatsenko, and with the help of former Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank developer, he started working on Revolut.
In the beginning, he raised a $3.5 million for the startup and launched Revolut as an exchange platform on 1 July 2015. The new and convenient concept of Revolut helped it reach more people and make other investors interested in it. In the next two years, the company raised $71 and valued at $350 million. The company also added some other financial services to the platform like cryptocurrency exchange, peer-to-peer payments and pre-paid debit card, etc.
In 2018, the Revolut raised a $250 million in another round of funding, led by Hong Kong-based DST Global. The company became a unicorn and valued $1.7 billion after the round of funding. The same year, the company was able to get the Specialised Bank licence from European Central Bank and an Electronic Money Institution licence, both facilitated by the Bank of Lithuania.
This way, the company is allowed to accept deposits from the consumers and offer them credits. But since it has the Specialised License, it cannot process the investments from the consumers.
Further Expansion
Revolut is one of the fastest-growing fintech, and as of February 2019, it has earned over 4 million users out of which half of them uses the Revolut debit card. The Revolut app offers withdrawal of around 120 currencies through ATMs, and around 29 currencies can be sent to people directly using the app. The app also supports the exchange of cryptocurrency with 20 different fiat currencies. The cryptocurrencies that the app support includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and XRP, etc. The app has its own wallet that can be used to make online payments.
The app had been developed to help people cut the extra fees they pay on exchanges, so the app provides a minimal or no fee for all of its services.
The company headquarters is based in London, United Kingdom, and Nikolay Storonsky is serving the company as the CEO. Currently, 600+ people are working for Revolut. The net worth of Storonsky is estimated to be $510 million.
Awards and Recognition
Revolut has been ranked number three in the LinkedIn Top Companies (UK Startups) list in 2018. It has been also awarded the Top 10 Employed Brand (UK) by Hired in the same year. Revolut won the award of Hottest Fintech Startup 2018 by Europa Awards and Innovator of the Year 2018 by Amazon Growing Business Awards. It was also named the Fintech Company of the Year 2018 by CityAM Awards.
For now, Storonsky is working hard and wants to extend the scope of Revolut services to other countries as well.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.