Fintech company Revolut was finally granted a full UK banking licence earlier this month. The app-based company has been used in the UK for years and has 13 million British customers…
The length of time it took to get the regulatory approval has been cited as another example of the UK’s sclerotic processes – it is more than four years since Revolut first applied for a licence. The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority repeatedly extended Revolut’s approval timelines…
Reform’s Richard Tice is among the politicians who have called the process “absurd”. Another take is available in the FT this morning, where the influential Lex column urges Revolut to “move slowly” with its ambitions to become a full bank in Britain, even though it has just been granted a licence. With regulators and a financial media like that, it’s a miracle the approval didn’t take a decade…
In Henry Mance’s piece today for the FT, lunching with Nigel Farage:
“Splendido!” Farage says, when the drinks arrive; I suppose it’s a step to European reconciliation. We clink glasses, and he lights the first of two back-to-back Benson & Hedges. A few minutes later, we’re back downstairs. “Are you drinking? Good.” He orders a glass of Sauvignon blanc for each of us — not a bottle, “because it’s Lent” — followed by a bottle of claret, to have with our meal. They say Farage drinks less than he used to. They say a lot of things.”