Revolut has begun offering unsecured personal loans in the UK, its UK chief executive Francesca Carlesi told Reuters. The move takes Europe's most valuable startup into a consumer lending market dominated by the country's biggest banks. The loans range from £2,000 to £25,000, with rates of 6.9% to 29.3%, a Revolut spokesperson said, and repayment terms run from one to five years.
The product is currently available to a small number of select customers and will be rolled out in phases over several months, according to the firm. Revolut will expand lending gradually and has no target for its overall lending in Britain, Carlesi said.
LOAN FEATURES AND APPLICATION PROCESS
Carlesi told Bloomberg, according to a company statement, that Revolut built a transparent and simple lending process. She said it offers near-instant disbursement once a loan is approved, no charge for early repayment and competitive rates.
UNDERWRITING AND RISK TRANSFER
Revolut lacks the decades of customer spending and repayment data held by traditional banks. It has therefore supplemented its underwriting with information purchased from external providers, Carlesi said, adding that the company was confident about its credit analysis.
The bank will eventually look to offload much of its lending risk through securitisation, Carlesi said. It aims to keep its loan-to-deposit ratio close to 6%, far lower than other banks.
CREDIT CARDS AND MORTGAGES TO FOLLOW
Revolut will also launch a credit card product in the near future, Carlesi said. It is part of a broader effort to increase the income generated from each customer, a metric by which Revolut lags traditional banks. Interest income accounted for about 22% of the company's total global revenues last year, with most of the remainder coming from fees.
Carlesi said Revolut also eventually plans to enter the highly competitive market for mortgages in Britain.
LICENCE, SCALE AND THE LENDING BACKDROP
Revolut secured a banking licence in the UK in March, having first applied for one in 2021. London-based Revolut, created in 2015 by CEO Nik Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, serves more than 80 million customers worldwide and has a private valuation of $115 billion, bigger than listed rivals such as Barclays and NatWest.
The lending push comes amid persistent cost-of-living challenges in Britain, worsened by a soft labour market and rising inflation, which could weigh on borrowers' ability to repay debt. In 2025, Lithuania's central bank imposed a record €3.5 million fine on Revolut over shortcomings in transaction-monitoring controls. In October 2026, Revolut was among the financial firms affected by an hours-long Google Cloud outage.
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