Revolut is considering diversifying its income stream by becoming a digital advertising platform similar to Google, Facebook, or even Amazon. A Financial Times report revealed that the UK fintech is internally targeting to generate about £300 million (approximately $370 million) by 2026 from advertising.
Road to “Become a Media Business”
“We could become a media [business] . . . a place where you have an audience and data about the audience, and you monetize this,” Antoine Le Nel, Revolut’s Head of Growth, told the publication without confirming the internal target figure.
“We know how [users] navigate inside the app, we know some of their interests that they have because they’ve clicked on this and that.”
Revolut has established itself as a challenger bank with services like payments, savings, cross-border remittances, and even crypto trading. In its home country, the UK, the fintech firm operates under a payments institution license, so it is not allowed to offer lending products. It has already applied for a banking license in the country in 2021 but is yet to receive it.
Meanwhile, it operates with a Lithuanian banking license in the European Union and recently acquired a Mexican banking license, with which it plans to capture the local cross-border remittance market. The British company also entered India, a country with a population of 1.4 billion, and received approval from the local central bank to offer pre-paid cards and wallets.
Setting the Stage for Selling Ads Solutions
Revolut’s push to diversify revenue with advertising can be confirmed with its hiring of Inam Mahmood, the former Head of e-Commerce Partnerships at TikTok UK last year. He now leads a team of 30 people to drive the company’s media strategy.
Only a few months after recruiting Mahmood, the firm unveiled its plans to roll out solutions that would allow brands to advertise on its app. It was a part of the company’s strategy to become a financial ‘super app’.
Revolut ended 2022 with a total revenue of $1.1 billion, an increase of 45 percent from the previous year. In 2023, it expects its figure to reach up to $2 billion.
The company’s revenue diversification strategy can be seen in the launch of its mobile phone e-SIM earlier this year. It additionally generates revenue from payments, subscriptions, foreign exchange, and its wealth division, which includes crypto trading.
