UK-based financial technology company Revolut has received formal authorization from the National Banking and Securities Commission to begin operating as a bank in Mexico. 

The authorization follows the initial approval granted by regulators in April 2024, making Revolut the first independent digital bank to successfully complete the licensing and approval process from scratch in Mexico.

“We’re going to launch in a matter of weeks and will open the doors to users in our beta program who have signed up for the waiting list,” Revolut México CEO Juan Guerra told Bloomberg Línea.

Serving more than 65 million retail customers globally, Revolut had nearly 200,000 registered users on the list in May and Guerra projected that the new bank could reach up to 1.5 million customers in its first year of operation. 

As a fully regulated bank, Revolut will offer a broad range of financial services with enhanced customer protection such as deposit insurance up to the legal limit.

“We’ve adapted our world-class banking app to serve customers across Mexico, at home or abroad, and this is just the beginning,” Guerra said. “We’ll continue to innovate and launch more products to meet all of our customers’ needs in one place.”

Revolut’s initial offering in Mexico will be a bank account with features such as sharing expenses with others, tracking spending and making international money transfers, including transfers between the U.S. and Mexico, one of the largest remittance corridors in the world.

“The data tells us that banking concentration in Mexico is higher than in other Latin American countries, banking penetration is lower, costs are higher, quality is lower — in short, something our country needs is greater competition,” Guerra said.

Revolut is investing heavily in its Mexico operations, Guerra said, actively hiring across all areas and organizational levels in an effort to create a world-class local team.

The Mexico launch is Revolut’s first bank outside of Europe, part of its global expansion plan to reach 100 million customers by mid-2027 and enter more than 30 new markets by 2030.

Latin America is one of the key regions in its expansion plan, Guerra said. The company already operates in Brazil, offering services but without a bank. In June, it acquired BNP’s Cetelem bank in Argentina and it hopes to become a bank in Colombia by next year.

Nik Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko founded Revolut in 2015 and began offering currency exchange and remittance services before expanding its portfolio to include other banking and financial products.

With reports from Bloomberg Línea, El Economista and El Financiero