Revolut wants to attack Indian banks and at their “criminal” exchange costs

The British Fintech Revolut – currently launched in India – says that cross -border payments remain one of the most un served financial services in India. According to his estimates, the Indians spend about $ 30 billion abroad each year and lose approximately $ 600 million in bank charges – the fees that the Indian official describes as “criminals”.

“It was the prerogative of the banks,” Techcrunch Chatterjee, CEO of Revolut India, told Techcrunch. “You go to your bank to withdraw currency, currencies, or you take a travel card issued by your bank when you travel abroad … Huge costs have been levied on this.”

Since 2021, Revolut has been working at its launch in India, with the aim of filling what it considers gaps in traditional exchange and payment spaces in the country. The Fintech based in London acquired Arvog Forex in 2022 to obtain a license and offer funds for transferring funds and multidvision accounts in India. In April of this year, she also obtained a prepaid payment instrument license (PPI) from the Reserve Bank of India, allowing her to issue prepaid cards, take charge of digital portfolios and integrate into the unified payment interface (UPI) supported by the government.

With these regulatory approvals, Revolut aims to challenge traditional banks in India and compete with existing fintech actors. The British startup targets more than 150 million Indians “aspiring the world and native of digital” aged 25 to 45, with the intention of integrating around 20 million users by 2030 and to treat at least $ 7 billion in their transactions.

Chatterjee has said that such regulatory approvals – including the PPI license – allow finish to offer a more differentiated experience than players who rely on banking partnerships. “We can offer the type of customer experience we want to offer,” she said.

Revolut will provide Indian consumers with a prepaid portfolio with UPI care and its own brand UPI handles, as well as a national visa card and a multi-Display Visa card. He will also introduce accounts dedicated to children and adolescents related to parents’ profiles, a model -based model and budgeting and analysis tools that provide information on spending habits.

In particular, the startup has regulatory authorizations to allow national and international payments and transfers via its platform. It is also authorized to allow funds the same day from India via a local partner bank.

Unlike many Indian fintech players who use minimum customer knowledge controls (KYC) to quickly integrate users for limited and low value transactions, Revolut will only offer full KYC portfolios. The Fintech will also check new users compared to the world sanctions lists, including those held by the Foreign Asset Control Office and the United Nations. This approach, said Chatterjee, aims to attract “very intentional customers” who are ready to follow a more detailed integration process, including Aadhaar and video verification.

“Someone would only do so if it is interested in using the product. Thus, this full integrated KYC customer will be my customer measure,” she noted.

“In a country like India, once you register on the App Store, pure curiosity stimulates downloads,” she said. “This is not our measure of success.”

The fintech also aims to measure its success in India by the extent of user engagement and profitability, not only by increasing its user base.

“There are people who talk about having 300 to 400 million customers,” Chatterjee told Techcrunch. “Revolut in 39 countries has 65 million customers and is estimated at $ 75 billion. The reason is that out of these 65 million customers, Revolut treats more than $ 4 billion in transactions and generates more than a billion dollars in profits. And that because of these 65 million customers in a given month, more than 25 million customers are active.”

It refers to the new valuation that Revolut announced last month following a secondary sale of shares, which made it go from $ 45 billion last summer.

Revolut already has a waiting list of more than 350,000 people in India, she also said, which she plans to integrate by the end of the year before opening the application to new users. The exact calendar of the launch will however depend on the speed with which the company will erase the waiting list and customers will carry out their KYC and money-silver (AML) checks.

The startup also explores partners other than Visa, notably Rupay of the Indian government, while it develops the product to offer customers a choice of networks.

Revolut has already injected $ 45 million into India to relaunch its operations and locate all of its technological battery in order to comply with the country’s regulations in terms of data sovereignty. She plans to invest more at the start of her operations, said Chatterjee.

Of the 10,000 revolut employees worldwide, around 3,500 are already based in India-its most important workforce in the world, even more numerous than on its original market in the United Kingdom. Some of these employees also work on the products and features available in markets outside India.

But as important as the revolut projects are, they will always face the competition once arrived. While changes are dominated by banks in India, Fintech players such as Niyo, Scapia, FI and BookmyForex are already active on the cross -border Indian market and funds.