SoftBank claims prevent Revolut from obtaining a UK banking license

The Financial Times, citing various sources, reports that the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) was leaning towards not issuing the relevant license to digital bank Revolut, which the startup applied for in 2021, but still decided to proceed. Negotiations with the fintech company.

The PRA’s main complaint against Revolut is that the company has an overblown ownership structure. But reducing the number of share classes will be difficult because the startup’s main shareholder, Japan’s SoftBank, is unwilling to trade preferred shares for common shares without generous compensation.

The bank wants almost twice as many shares as Revolut usually offers for the loss of preemptive rights that comes with higher quality stocks. The issue is supposed to be resolved through negotiations: the fitness startup has already sent an appeal to SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son.

It was after a face-to-face meeting between Storonsky and Son in 2021 that Revolut raised an $800 million investment from Vision Fund 2 (owned by SoftBank), boosting the company’s valuation to $33 billion and becoming UK’s most valuable fintech startup.

At the same time, FT journalists have learned that British Minister for Business and Trade Kemi Badenok plans to meet personally with Revolut leaders next week to discuss business prospects (the authors of the material believe that the authorities are afraid the departure of the company from the country).

Literally in the first days of May, it became known that the digital bank Revolut entered the Latin American market and began to offer cryptocurrency investment services in Brazil.

Revolut, PRA and SoftBank have not commented on the FT investigation.