The fintech announced a $182m investment in the country over the next five years.
Revolut has applied for a Swiss banking licence as part of its continued global expansion campaign. The UK fintech has established or is aiming to set up authorised banking entities across the globe, including in Colombia, the US, France, Peru, the UK, Australia and Mexico.
Revolut already has more than 1.3m customers in Switzerland, currently served by Revolut Bank UAB, which is licensed in Lithuania. Obtaining a Swiss banking licence would mean the fintech can offer its customers Swiss IBANs, salary accounts, e-bills, merchant acquiring and deposit protection under the country’s strict standards.
The company also announced plans to invest more than 150m Swiss francs ($182m) in Switzerland over the next five years to create local jobs and support product development. Revolut also intends to make a number of senior leadership appointments to further strengthen its local banking build-out.
“Together with our existing banking licences and regulatory infrastructure across Europe, this would further strengthen our compliance, governance and regulatory framework,” said David Tirado, Revolut’s chief commercial officer.
Julian Biegmann, Revolut’s general manager for Switzerland, added: “Revolut is already Switzerland’s leading fintech. With our own banking licence, we would become a true Swiss bank, able to offer our more than 1.3m customers our leading Revolut banking product with a Swiss finish.”
Earlier this year, reports suggested that the fintech was on its way to a $200bn valuation in an eventual initial public offering expected around 2028. It was last valued at $75bn after a major share sale last November.
News of the company’s continued expansion comes just days after it disclosed a data breach that is understood to have affected nearly 700 customers globally, including 12 in Ireland.
In a community alert last week, the company explained that it disclosed sensitive customer data to an unauthorised fraudulent party after receiving requests for information from an email with a government agency domain.
The company mistakenly fulfilled the data requests before realising that the sender was phishing for data, it said. The disclosed data included full names, dates of birth, occupations, addresses, contact details, passports, drivers’ licences, financial statements and facial verification images.
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