Revolut Bank S.A. (RBSA) has been granted a full banking licence in France, the company announced on Monday, marking a significant milestone in the fintech giant's European expansion strategy.

The licence was issued following a joint review process conducted by the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR), France's banking regulator, and the European Central Bank (ECB). Final approval was granted by the ECB Governing Council on August 10, 2026. The authorisation grants Revolut a full ECB-supervised banking licence, a more comprehensive credential than the e-money or specialised banking licences under which many European digital challengers still operate.

Revolut currently serves approximately 30 million customers across Western Europe, with nearly 8 million of those customers having joined in 2025 alone. The new French licence solidifies the company's standing as one of the region's largest retail banking providers and positions it well ahead of competitors such as Germany's N26 and the Netherlands' Bunq in customer scale. To support its continued growth, Revolut plans to invest more than €1 billion in Western Europe and create over 600 new jobs. The company also intends to open a new regional headquarters in Paris in 2027, a city that has actively attracted financial services firms in the years following Brexit.

Under the new licence, RBSA will initially begin serving customers in France before expanding its operations to additional markets, including Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Revolut's existing Lithuanian entity, Revolut Bank UAB, will continue to support operations across the remainder of the European Economic Area. Lithuania has served as Revolut's primary EU banking base since the company secured a specialised banking licence there in 2018, a pathway taken by numerous fintechs seeking continued access to EU markets after the United Kingdom's departure from the bloc. Both the French and Lithuanian entities will operate under ECB supervision, forming what Revolut describes as a "dual hub" model intended to support large-scale growth across the continent.

Nik Storonsky, Revolut's founder and CEO, stated that the licence provides the company with "the foundation to build the next generation of banking" for its millions of customers in Western Europe. He noted that France's established financial industry and regulatory framework make it an ideal base for the company's future expansion.

Revolut, founded in 2015, has grown from a digital foreign exchange and payments app into one of the world's most prominent fintech firms. With banking licences now held in both Europe and the United States, the company currently operates in 40 markets worldwide and continues to broaden its global footprint across retail banking, payments, cryptocurrency, and wealth management services.