Fintech company Revolut's revenue rose to a record £923m in 2022, helped by interest income growth, but net profit fell sharply to £6m, the company said in delayed annual accounts today.
Revolut, which ranked as the UK's most valuable start-up with around a $33 billion valuation in 2021, has applied for a UK banking licence but is still awaiting approval.
The company had said in September it had received permission to delay filing its annual accounts for a second year running. The auditor's report published today said that it had been able to obtain sufficient evidence for 2022's figures.
A Revolut spokesperson said the fall in net profit was due to re-investing back into the business. Revolut said it had increased spending on new product launches and global expansion, as well as doubling its headcount.
Staff costs jumped, and spending on advertising and marketing more than doubled, the report said.
Revolut said income from interest on assets grew to £83m in 2022, up around 4,700% from just £1.7m in 2021.
Gerhard Kling, chair in finance at the University of Aberdeen, said the revenue was driven by the increase in net interest income, due to central banks having raised interest rates in 2022.
"This is not a big surprise because interest rates went up, so all the banks will benefit from that and their net interest margins will improve," Kling said.
Revolut made its first full-year profit in 2021, of £26m, helped by a boom in cryptocurrency trading.
But retail investing in crypto and equity markets dropped "significantly" in 2022, interim CFO Victor Stinga said in today's report.
Revolut CFO Mikko Salovaara left the company in May.
The company's 2021 accounts were also delayed and when they were finally published in March 2023, the auditor BDO said at the time it was not able to independently verify three-quarters of the 636 million pounds of revenue. The warning drew scrutiny from regulators.
Revolut said its application for a UK banking licence "remains ongoing", but gave no further details. The company had said in March it was "in the advanced stages" of the application.
The company's 2022 accounts included a number of revisions to figures in the 2021 accounts. For example, 2021's average monthly number of employees was revised to 2,365 from 4,655.
In the report, Revolut said that the changes were made "to align with presentation standards for the current year" and had no impact on net profit for the year.
Nik Storonsky, Revolut's chief executive, said the fintech strengthened its financial position, grew its customer base, launched multiple new products, expanded into new markets, and bolstered its risk, compliance and governance infrastructure during 2022.
"Looking ahead, our focus is on continued growth across all our markets," the CEO said.
"We recently surpassed 35 million customers globally, who together make over half a billion transactions a month, as well as launched Revolut 10, our most significant overhaul of the design and layout of the app yet," he said.
"These are great achievements, but we're not slowing down, we aim to '10x' this, pushing towards 350 million customers and beyond," he added.
Last year, Revolut launched IBANs for its Irish customers, while it also launched Pay Later services here for its more than 2 million customers. It also offers credit cards, small loans and car insurance to its Irish customers.
