Revolut has received a full French banking licence for Revolut Bank S.A., clearing the way for the company to make France its second banking hub in the European Economic Area. Revolut said the licence followed a joint assessment by France’s Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution and the European Central Bank, with the decision formally adopted by the ECB Governing Council.
The new bank will start serving customers in France before expanding in phases to Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Revolut’s existing Lithuanian bank will remain responsible for customers elsewhere in the EEA, giving the group a two-hub structure for European banking operations.
That makes the licence more than a local approval. Revolut says Western Europe is already its largest and fastest-growing region, with about 30 million customers. The French entity is intended to become the regulated base for six of the company’s biggest European markets while Lithuania continues to cover the rest of the bloc.
French approval puts Revolut’s two-hub plan into operation
Revolut first set out the structure in May 2025, when it announced plans to apply for a French banking licence and establish a Western Europe headquarters in Paris. At that point, the company said the French operation would complement Revolut Bank UAB in Lithuania rather than replace it.
The August 10 approval turns that plan into a licensed banking structure. Revolut Bank S.A. will serve France first, followed by Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Revolut Bank UAB will continue to serve the remaining EEA markets.
The Wall Street Journal independently reported that customers in the five additional Western European markets will gradually move to the licensed French entity. Spanish business newspaper Cinco Días also reported the six-market structure, with the Lithuanian entity remaining in place for the rest of the EEA.
The arrangement fits the European banking passporting system. The ECB says a bank authorised in one EEA country can conduct authorised business in other EEA countries through services or branches after the required notifications. The ECB also assesses bank licence applications with the relevant national supervisor and reviews capital, the business plan, governance and significant shareholders.
Revolut’s announcement says the French application was assessed jointly by the ACPR and ECB. The company has not published the date on which regulators accepted a complete application, so the public period between the May 2025 announcement and the August 2026 approval should not be treated as the formal regulatory processing time.
Six Western European markets will move under the French bank
The most immediate consequence is a change in which Revolut banking entity will serve a large part of Western Europe.
France is first. Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain will follow in later phases. Revolut has not announced country-by-country migration dates, and its August 10 statement does not set out immediate changes to account numbers, pricing, contractual terms or product access.
That distinction matters for customers. The licence has been granted, but the migration itself will be progressive. The legal entity serving an account does not change simply because the approval has been announced. Customers will need to rely on market-specific notices from Revolut for the timing and terms of any transfer.
Revolut says it now serves more than 75 million customers globally and about 30 million across Western Europe. Close to 8 million customers joined the Western European business over the past year, according to the company.
The Financial Times reported that Revolut has around 7 million customers in France, making the country one of the group’s largest individual markets. That scale helps explain why Paris, rather than another European city, has become the base for the second EEA bank.
Paris becomes the operating centre for Western Europe
The licence sits alongside a larger build-out in France. Revolut says it has committed more than €1 billion to Western Europe and is hiring more than 600 people across the region. It also plans to open its new Western Europe headquarters in Paris in 2027.
In April, the company signed a 10-year lease for more than 2,400 square metres of office space in Paris. The office, near the Bourse and Sentier districts, is scheduled to open in early 2027 and is intended to support operations across France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Portugal.
Revolut’s April announcement said the regional business then had more than 25 million customers. The August licence announcement puts the figure at about 30 million, illustrating how quickly the customer base has expanded while the French application was being processed.
The French bank also has a leadership team drawn partly from traditional European banking. Former Société Générale chief executive Frédéric Oudéa chairs the board of Revolut Bank S.A., while Béatrice Cossa-Dumurgier leads the Western Europe business as chief executive.
Cossa-Dumurgier’s message after approval was concise: “Our focus now turns to execution.”
That execution now covers two separate jobs. Revolut has to migrate a large customer base into the French structure without disrupting day-to-day banking, and it has to use the licence to build more locally specific products in markets where it increasingly competes with established retail banks.
The licence opens room for a broader banking offer
Revolut has spent years expanding beyond foreign exchange and payments into deposits, lending, investments and business banking. A locally licensed French bank gives it a broader platform for that strategy in Western Europe.
The Financial Times reported on August 10 that the French licence will allow Revolut to offer a wider range of loans, mortgages and savings products in France. Revolut had already flagged mortgages and overdrafts as part of its European product roadmap when it announced the French application in May 2025.
The approval should not be read as a same-day product launch. Revolut’s official announcement does not give dates for new French mortgages, savings products or credit products, and individual launches can still depend on operational readiness and supervisory requirements.
What the licence does provide is a French banking entity through which those products can be developed and distributed. That is particularly relevant as Revolut tries to become a primary bank for more customers rather than an app used mainly for travel, transfers or secondary spending.
The company has the balance sheet to support a larger lending push. Its 2025 results showed group revenue of $6.0 billion and profit before tax of $2.3 billion. Customer balances rose 66% to $67.5 billion, while the lending portfolio increased 120% to $2.9 billion. Bloomberg separately reported the £4.5 billion revenue and £1.7 billion pre-tax profit figures when the results were released in March.
Revolut ended 2025 with 68.3 million retail customers. Its latest French licence announcement says the global figure has now passed 75 million.
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