The loans are unsecured and range from £2,000 to £25,000, with “near-instant” funds after approval, according to The Independent. Customers can apply and manage repayments through the Revolut app. The company said there is no fee for early repayment.
This is a modest launch in format and a consequential one in substance. Revolut said the product is currently available only to a small number of selected customers and will be rolled out in phases over several months. That restraint makes sense. Consumer lending is where a financial business has to show not just that people like using it, but that it can judge risk well enough to get repaid.
Britain matters here because Revolut is bringing the product to its home market, where it says it has about 14 million customers. The company already offers loans in some other countries, but the UK launch carries a different weight after its long wait to become a fully fledged bank.
The licensing story is part of the point. Revolut first applied to become a full bank five years ago and then spent years waiting for approval from UK regulators, according to the source. Since getting a licence, with restrictions, it has started offering bank accounts for retail and business customers and has been working toward a broader banking offering.
Francesca Carlesi, Revolut’s UK chief executive, said UK borrowers can face “unnecessary friction and complex fee structures” and described the company’s process as transparent and simple, with competitive rates. That is the standard promise at launch. The harder question is what happens when simplicity meets the ordinary hazards of unsecured lending: credit quality, pricing discipline and losses.
For now, the clearest thing that can be said is that Revolut has moved beyond the promise of becoming a broader bank and put an actual lending product in front of UK customers. It is still a phased release to a limited group, which is a quieter fact than the marketing language and probably the more important one.
Dua Mifsud 
Ryan C 
Alex de Valletta