An IMGW News Report
Revolut, the British-born digital bank founded in London in 2015, has vaulted to the top of Lithuania’s banking sector in barely five years. By assets, it now commands more than 30% of the market, eclipsing long-entrenched incumbents Swedbank, SEB and Luminor. Yet the headline figure conceals a more nuanced picture: much of Revolut’s balance sheet stems from customers elsewhere in Europe.
“We’re just getting started… making strong progress towards 100 million daily active customers across 100 countries.”
Lithuania’s banking landscape has long been narrow. In 2019, presidential candidate Gitanas Nausėda quipped that the country had “three and a half banks” – hardly a recipe for competitive pricing. Since assuming office, he has tried to lure new entrants. Commerzbank has opened a representative office in Vilnius; Deutsche Bank remains undecided. Two more applications for specialised licences are under review.
Revolut’s rise has nonetheless altered the arithmetic. Absent from the central bank’s tables in 2019, it now accounts for nearly a third of market assets. Swedbank follows with a quarter, SEB with a fifth. Artea, a rebranded domestic lender, holds 7%. Traditional banks insist that Revolut’s cross-border operations inflate its local presence.
Still, incumbents are hardly stagnant. Swedbank has doubled deposits to €16.8bn and loans to more than €10bn since 2019, buoyed by higher wages and pandemic-era savings. SEB reports similar growth, its assets up nearly 80% to €15bn. Artea, once modest, has doubled its loan book and carved out a bigger share of the mortgage market.
“(…) Traditional banks insist that Revolut’s cross-border operations inflate its local presence”
Revolut, for its part, stresses user numbers. It now serves 650,000 Lithuanians – impressive in a country of 2.8m – alongside 40m customers across the European Economic Area. As chief executive Nik Storonsky put it in the firm’s latest annual report, “2024 was a landmark year for Revolut. We not only accelerated our customer growth, welcoming nearly 15 million new users globally, but critically, we also saw customers engaging more deeply.” He added: “We’re just getting started… making strong progress towards 100 million daily active customers across 100 countries.”
“As reported last month by IMGW NEWS, Revolut is already looking beyond Europe, weighing acquisitions in America to accelerate its entry into the world’s largest banking market”
Revolut Bank’s European Market Expansion
The chart above shows Revolut’s penetration across selected EU Schengen countries, comparing reported user numbers with national populations. Malta leads, with nearly 58% penetration. Lithuania, Greece and Portugal follow at much lower levels. Romania* is included for context, though it is not a full Schengen member.
Elsewhere, executives frame Revolut as a challenger brand. “Traditional banking plays a lot on retaining clients; we offer freedom,” said Eduardo Pérez Toribio, the group’s head in Spain. For Francesca Carlesi, CEO of Revolut UK, sustaining momentum depends on scale: “Revolut continues to grow from strength to strength; and to support that growth it is essential that we recruit the best talent from across the industry.”
The firm’s appeal stretches beyond finance. In July, Audi F1’s team principal Jonathan Wheatley described Revolut as “a partner… to expand hugely into this incredible global space that Formula One is in at the moment.”
Yet for policymakers in Vilnius, Revolut’s ascent is a double-edged sword. It underscores Lithuania’s allure as a fintech hub, but also its reliance on outsiders whose priorities may ultimately lie elsewhere. And Revolut, still headquartered in London, is looking ever further afield: as IMGW.News recently reported, the company is weighing acquisitions in America to accelerate its entry into the world’s largest banking market.
The contest between digital convenience and physical presence, at home and abroad, is only just beginning.
