“Building a global bank account is our number one value proposition. Even if you have local apps, for local payments, it does not allow you to use them globally,” says Revolut CEO Nikolay Storonsky during an interview with e27 when asked about competition from local payment apps in Singapore.
On October 24, Revolut the UK headquartered fintech company — which offers fee-free currency exchange, commission-free stock trading, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payments– made its official entry into the Asian waters by launching into the Singaporean market.
According to the CEO, the firm aims to become a one-stop solution for financial services, starting with its ongoing plans to kick start commission-free trading for stocks via its platform in Singapore which is currently not available in the region but has already been seen as a feature in the UK.
While local companies such as Nium offer services like instant money transfers and have been in the Asian market for longer, Storonsky stresses that even though they do it, they do not do it for free, which come across as a valid argument and could be one of the reasons why Revolut’s perks could be more attractive to the mass.
The relatively young fintech company has already managed to acquire over seven million accounts and an average of 3.7 million active users each month. Along with more than 30,000 customers in Singapore after only a year of beta testing in Singapore, the company is confident that local users will see a unique value in its vision of moving money freely around the world -“as easy as sending an SMS”.
“One of the reasons why we picked Singapore as a base for the Asian expansion is because of the rather transparent regulations to get licenses. However, in the majority of the countries, regulations are more or less the same for crypto or remittance offerings. Certain local laws might be different, but overall, the infrastructure to implement these regulations is very similar in every single country,” explains Storonsky on how different country regulations might affect Revolut’s remittance and crypto offerings.
However, despite its ambition, various reports stated that Revolut has withdrawn from the digital banking licensing race, along with Nium and Transferwise due to high capital requirement.
Big plans for Asia
For foreign companies entering a new, culturally oriented market such as Asia, marketing is often seen as one of the greatest challenges.
When being asked if Revolut has any plan to localise its awareness campaigns, Storonsky mentions that the company is more positioned towards building a strong local leadership team and products teams in different locations, that will allow it to tweak and localise the product. The principle, however, will remain the same: To build a powerful platform that makes it easy to move money around the world in a seamless manner.
Storonsky also admits that one of the key challenges for the company has been “hiring”. To which Jakub Zakrzewski, Head of APAC at Revolut, added that “We see that Singapore has a great pool of local talent. However, in Singapore, at the beginning of their career, many people want to go into banking, consulting, or work for big companies because it offers a lower risk and is considered as a safer option. However, we see that the trend is shifting. More and more people are getting into the tech industry, knowing that this is the industry of the future. While it is not simply about having a big name on the CV, Revolut has already managed to build a reputation for itself, and it is already a brand that can compete with all the other bigger prestigious brands.”
Even though hiring might have been a challenge for the company, the team has already multiplied considerably from 50 people from two years ago in the London office to 500 and 1,500 globally.
Being currently present in the Asian frontier, Storonsky also said that Revolut aims to be in almost every country in Asia within five years.
That being said, the company plans to launch in Japan early next year, with Hong Kong and New Zealand subsequently. It is also looking to execute live beta testing plans in Australia.
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Image Credit: Revolut
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