Revolut, the UK fintech, said it is closing in on receiving a UK banking licence after reporting annual profits for the first time.
In a delayed set of results, Revolut reported profits of £26.3mln in 2021 compared to a loss of £167mln in 2020.
Revenues also tripled to £636mln in 2021 from £220mln in 2020, with revenues for 2022 reported at more than £850mln.
“We have achieved our first full year of profit and shown that we can accelerate customer growth, at scale, and grow revenue across all of our product lines,” said co-founder and chief executive Nik Storonsky.
Previously, the bank has said it would consider going public depending on market conditions.
Although the appetite for IPOs is still somewhat scant, turning a profit almost eight years after being founded might accelerate plans for the fintech.
Being granted its UK banking licence may also kick start IPO talks for the fintech, which it said it is “really near the final stages” of achieving.
However, the group’s auditor BDO said that for the year ended 31 December 2021, Revolut’s IT systems “were not designed in such a way that would allow for IT or business process controls to be effectively tested throughout the year.”
Essentially, there was no “reliable documentary evidence” of user activity produced or maintained outside of the group’s IT system, which alone “cannot provide sufficient audit evidence”
BDO raised the issue that it could not verify, as a result, £477mln of the revenue reported by Revolut, as well as their “completeness or occurrence,” and said that some information may be “materially misstated.”