The European Central Bank quietly moved to rein in Revolut last year, restricting Europe’s most valuable fintech from launching new products across the European Economic Area over concerns about how fast it approved them, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The intervention had not been disclosed before.
The ECB paused Revolut’s European arm from releasing new EEA products last summer until it fixed “deficiencies” in its approval process, people familiar with the matter told the FT. Revolut’s European business, regulated through the ECB and the Bank of Lithuania, was informed in July 2025.
The regulator went beyond a pause. It ordered an independent review of Revolut’s risk, compliance, and legal functions, told the company to strengthen the staffing, skills, and independence of its product-approval teams, and required future launches to get sign-off from in-house experts plus a board assessment of their impact on group capital and liquidity.
Outside the EEA, the limits were tighter still: no acquisitions and no new customers.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!The restriction strikes at Revolut’s core method. Chief executive Nik Storonsky has urged staff to behave like “self-guided missiles”, free to ship products with limited oversight. “They press the button and they reach the goals themselves,” he said on a podcast in December 2024. That speed built a fast-growing range of services, and a valuation ahead of most European banks, in little over a decade.
