London-based challenger bank Revolut has partnered with international payments giant Mastercard to launch its services across “210 new countries and territories”.
Mastercard will create and facilitate the first Revolut debit cards to be released in the USA, which will be launched by the end of 2019.
“Today’s announcement confirms the two businesses will partner on a minimum of 50 percent of all existing and future cards Revolut issue in Europe…
The global expansion will also enable Revolut to reach markets in Asia Pacific and Latin America such as: Australia, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand, Brazil and Mexico.”
Joint press release (Mastercard / Revolut)
This is a significant milestone for Revolut, as before now the bank had predominantly been focused on the UK and EU markets where it similarly worked with Mastercard to deliver payment cards with Europe-wide compatibility.
Revolut bank, unlike many of its peers (such as Monzo) has long advertised itself as a crypto-friendly organisation. It’s app includes a ‘cryptocurrency’ feature which allows customers to purchase, hold and sell Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum at market value. It does not, however, let customers trade, withdraw, or deposit funds with external accounts.
“As a launch partner of Revolut, Mastercard has been an important contributor to our success, and today’s agreement will enable us to meet our ambitious goal of offering innovative financial and payment solutions to people all over the world…
Launching in the U.S. will be a huge milestone for us, and we are delighted Mastercard will be our go-to-market partner.”
Nik Storonsky (Revolut, founder and chief executive officer)
The bank has received a lot of coverage since it was founded in 2015. It became a tech ‘unicorn’ back in 2018, a term which denotes a private-ownership startup with a valuation of over $1 billion.
Over the past year: the company has received a lot of criticism and negative coverage, specifically with a series of reports published by the UK news publication The Telegraph.
Earlier this month, it was reported that:
“Having partnered with Revolut over the last four years, we are delighted that our relationship continues to grow and meet our collective global ambitions…
Broadening Revolut’s global reach will enable millions more people around the world to benefit from Mastercard’s worldwide acceptance footprint and Revolut’s ground breaking financial services.”
Michael Miebach (Mastercard, chief product officer)
Earlier this month Mastercard, along with Visa, Stripe, eBay, PayPal and three others notoriously left Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project – leaving only 21 of its original 28 founding members remaining on the board.
