Revolut to go up against AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown after receiving UK trading licence

Revolut plans to offer UK and EU stock trading and ETFs next year after the UK finance regulator granted it a UK trading licence. Europe’s most valuable private tech firm, valued at $45bn, has been granted the licence by the FCA, meaning it is now an authorised investment firm.

It means that Revolut, which is primarily known as a challenger bank, will go up against the likes of Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Freetrade by offering stock trading. Since 2018, Revolut has operated its trading feature through a third party, which is understood to be Resolution Compliance, an FCA-regulated firm which offers licence-to-hire services for fintechs.

The partnership allowed Revolut to offer an investment service through its app, where retail customers could buy and sell shares listed in the US.  Now, under its own licence, Revolut will be able to offer new products and services to its customers when it wants to including UK and EU stocks and ETFs.

Revolut says the UK licence will also allow for “significant improvements in user experience” for its 650,000+ existing UK trading customers.

Yana Shkrebenkova, head of Wealth and Trading UK at Revolut, said:

“Today’s announcement is a significant milestone for Revolut Trading.

“Having launched our successful investment product five years ago, we strive to bring best in class investment products to our customers in the UK.

“We know that there is so much more our Revolut Trading customers want from our platform and we are working hard to deliver on this, rolling out new features safely and considerately.”

The move follows Revolut’s announcement in September that it was launching a standalone investment app in Europe, as it looks to disrupt the retail investor market and ramp up its efforts to be an all-encompassing financial super-app.

Revolut is piloting Revolut Invest in Greece, the Czech Republic and Denmark, with plans to roll out across the EU later this year and other countries around the world.