Digital bank Revolut is eyeing a South African launch

Digital banks TymeBank, Discovery Bank and Bank Zero could soon see a new competitor in the South African market: London-headquartered Revolut, the world’s fourth-largest digital bank, is eyeing a local launch, TechCentral has learnt.

Unlike South Africa’s digital banking upstarts, which have focused almost exclusively on the personal banking segment, Revolut’s offering includes a wider range of services including multi-currency accounts, fee-free currency exchange, stock and commodity trading, and even cryptocurrency trading.

Revolut’s entry into the South African market, if it happens, could therefore lead to a big shift in the broader banking sector and perhaps even threaten the market shares of larger traditional banks.

“Revolut continues to explore opportunities for growth in new markets as part of our mission to bring the Revolut app to customers around the world. South Africa is a market we are evaluating, and one we see as attractive, with the potential to offer a unique value proposition to customers in the future. However, we are quite early in the process,” Revolut told TechCentral.

Founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, Revolut started out by offering a prepaid card with low-fee foreign exchange services. It has since evolved to a full-fledged financial “super app”.

Its business banking offering provides multi-currency accounts with corporate cards and expense management tools. It also offers insurance and lifestyle services including travel insurance, device insurance and perks like airport lounge access. But its product offering is not the same in the more than 160 countries and regions in which it operates, and it’s not known which of these will be offered in South Africa if a launch goes ahead.

50 million clients

Revolut has 50 million customers globally, with 10 million in the UK alone. The company is valued at US$45-billion (as of August 2024). Although users in Africa can download the Revolut app and gain access to a limited subset of its services, the company does not have a banking licence in any African nation. A South Africa launch could serve as a launchpad for the rest of the continent.

Revolut’s fight for market share in South Africa will not be easy. Just like Revolut, South Africa’s first fully digital bank, TymeBank, also has unicorn status, with a December 2024 valuation pricing the company at $1.5-billion. In its last funding round, TymeBank secured a $150-million investment from one of Revolut’s global competitors, Nubank – the world’s largest standalone bank. According to Coenraad Jonker, CEO and co-founder of Tyme, the investment by Nubank – whose core markets are Brazil, Mexico and Colombia – is the company’s way of indirectly entering the African and Southeast Asian markets through TymeBank.

“They (Nubank) do not have plans to grow organically into Southeast Asia,” said Jonker, and its investment “is really the bet that they are taking as Nubank in Southeast Asia and Africa”.

While TymeBank’s focus leans towards the low end of the market, Discovery spin-off Discovery Bank has made meaningful headway in the middle and upper segments of the digital banking market – a space that Revolut dominates in many of the countries where it has a presence. In terms of product offering, Discovery Bank has a suite that matches Revolut’s on a number of services including multi-currency accounts, credit cards and benefits like airport lounge access.

Read: TymeBank parent valued at $1.5-billion in latest fundraise

Launched in 2019, Discovery surpassed the one million customer mark in September 2024. TymeBank has more than 10 million customers.

“Revolut has aggressive plans to continue to grow its customer base to the 100 million milestone, while also rolling out new and innovative services to become the primary bank of choice for its customers,” the bank said in a statement last August.  – © 2025 NewsCentral Media

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