A2Z Fintech
00:51:25 · Aman Narain, Zubin Vandrevala
[00:51:25] S0: 700 people's faces on Telegram holding their own passports. A bank that took risks out of its balance sheet, its hiring, and its investing routed what was left through a compliance officer's inbox. [00:51:38] S1: And the fix is more Storonsky, not less. Right? Automate the callback, make the machine ring roam before a human can hit send. And in fairness to him, Revolut says it checked with the agencies itself, blocked the address, told the regulator, and that its systems and the customers' funds were untouched. The FCA says it's engaging with [00:51:58] S0: it. And I'd still call it the story of the month because it's the second time in four years, September 2022, about 50,000 customers. Details were taken by social engineering. September 2026, a fake government request. Different doors, same wall. A person persuaded to hand over something over. [00:52:18] S1: Yeah. So two breaches through, know, I guess, both through people, neither through code. And your friend's caveat just came true. Right? An order of magnitude faster than banking. So as long as they don't screw it up, I guess. [00:52:31] S0: The suit says grown up. The breach says there's plenty of growing up still to do. [00:52:36] S1: And the irony writes itself. Right? The same year his AI assistant learned to freeze your card in a sentence, a human handed over your passport because an email looked official.
00:52:36 · Zubin Vandrevala, Aman Narain
[00:52:36] S1: And the irony writes itself. Right? The same year his AI assistant learned to freeze your card in a sentence, a human handed over your passport because an email looked official. [00:52:48] S0: You know, and and, Zubin, there's a postscript to this, and and it's breaking as we record this. It seems like there's a second breach in the same month. This one with DriveWealth, the American broker that used to handle US share trading for Revolut customers. Social engineering again, notice a pattern, on the fourth and fifth of September this month. Names, contact, addresses, employment details, partial account numbers, no passwords, no cards, no identity documents, but thousands of Irish customers amongst those affected. [00:53:21] S1: And and and and he'll say it correctly. This is... Wasn't really Revolut. Right? There was a partner on historical records from before he changed the trading. [00:53:30] S0: That's correct. But it won't matter. Probably. The more regulated you are, and as he realizes, the less anyone cares whose server it was. A bank owns its supply chain. That's what a license, I guess, means. [00:53:46] S1: So the transition from fintech to regular bank isn't a straight road. Right? It's a chicane. And the fastest car in the field is no use if it can't take corners. Right? Like, he needs the best brakes in the world and, I guess, the best steering.
00:53:46 · Zubin Vandrevala, Aman Narain
[00:53:46] S1: So the transition from fintech to regular bank isn't a straight road. Right? It's a chicane. And the fastest car in the field is no use if it can't take corners. Right? Like, he needs the best brakes in the world and, I guess, the best steering. [00:54:00] S0: You know, it it reminds me. Years ago, I was at a banker's lunch at the Hong Kong Jockey Club, and the speaker there was Jackie Stewart, the race car legend. I've forgotten everything else from that day. There was a lot of wine. But I'll never forget this. He says, brakes don't slow you down. They allow you to go faster. [00:54:20] S1: Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Didn't Mario say that? [00:54:26] S0: This is this is also true. But, you know, being profound is forgetting your sources, I suppose. [00:54:31] S1: Alright. Alright. Okay. Okay. I'll it with you. One of you said it. It's still the right. [00:54:36] S0: It's obviously the American who was right. Yeah. But here's the whole point. Compliance isn't what slows Revolut down. Done properly, it's what lets it go faster. Right now, it's carrying racing speed into a corner it hasn't taken before. And let me then use this as a segue to count three. And he pleads to this himself, because it's the empire from two segments ago. A consumer bank in more than 100 countries, he has admitted, runs into sanctions. You cannot do a lot of things in many, many markets. And vetting customers, he admits, has been particularly challenging.
00:54:36 · Aman Narain, Zubin Vandrevala
[00:54:36] S0: It's obviously the American who was right. Yeah. But here's the whole point. Compliance isn't what slows Revolut down. Done properly, it's what lets it go faster. Right now, it's carrying racing speed into a corner it hasn't taken before. And let me then use this as a segue to count three. And he pleads to this himself, because it's the empire from two segments ago. A consumer bank in more than 100 countries, he has admitted, runs into sanctions. You cannot do a lot of things in many, many markets. And vetting customers, he admits, has been particularly challenging. [00:55:15] S1: And overcompliance also gets punished too. Right? Like November 2025, confirmed revived, froze the accounts of thousands of Russian citizens living legally in Europe on resident permits. Right? So people who couldn't reach their money, their own money for rent. [00:55:31] S0: And and the man at the top has his own Russian paperwork story. Nine days, 10/19/2022, Ukraine designates his father under presidential decree seven two six for running Gazprom Promgas. October 28, the son renounces his Russian citizenship. British since 2013. From that day, British only. [00:55:56] S1: Physicist born in Lviv, sanctioned by the country of his birth for running an engineering firm, the country he moved to. And nine days later, his son gives up the other passport.
00:55:56 · Zubin Vandrevala, Aman Narain
[00:55:56] S1: Physicist born in Lviv, sanctioned by the country of his birth for running an engineering firm, the country he moved to. And nine days later, his son gives up the other passport. [00:56:07] S0: Two things alongside it plainly. In March 2022, he published a letter condemning the invasion, saying his father is Ukrainian, and Revolut switched the app off in Russia and Belarus, importantly. That was confirmed. And no Western authority has designated his father, not that we could find. [00:56:27] S1: Yeah. And the defense, through a five year UK application, parliamentary committees and security agencies press regulators on his capital, his shareholders, and his data. He faced a file his Western bond rivals never would, and he got the license. [00:56:42] S0: And the file never closes. He built a bank that vets everyone, and he's the one customer it will never finish vetting. [00:56:50] S1: I guess prosecution rests. [00:56:53] S0: Prosecution rests. A freeze nobody knew about, two breaches in a month through the one door he left open and a passport he can't put down. None of it is the test that matters. That one happens on a stock exchange. [00:57:07] S1: Yeah. And and the reporting says a float within two years add up to 200,000,000,000. Right? He told Rubenstein in April it was two years away, and the due listing isn't a whisper. He's confirmed London and New York for a man who spends two years calling a London float irrational.
00:57:07 · Zubin Vandrevala, Aman Narain
[00:57:07] S1: Yeah. And and the reporting says a float within two years add up to 200,000,000,000. Right? He told Rubenstein in April it was two years away, and the due listing isn't a whisper. He's confirmed London and New York for a man who spends two years calling a London float irrational. [00:57:26] S0: The only precedent. Wise moved its primary listing to the Nasdaq in May, and its multiple stayed tied to the fundamentals, about four and a half times revenue. Revolut's private mark is 19. On Wise's multiple, Revolut is a $27,000,000,000 company. [00:57:46] S1: Well, the precedent says something narrow. Right? Wise went to New York for the multiples and got the liquidity instead. But Wise is a payments utility. Right? Revolut is, what, 80,000,000 customers, a string of new licenses, and a founder with a health tech habit. Right? So New York will pay for a story. It just has to be able to read it, I guess. [00:58:09] S0: And the reader wants what he never had to give, quarterly numbers and a board with teeth. Remember Reed? Shareholders had no real voice when he built Citi's consumer bank. Storonsky has built his with none at all. [00:58:26] S1: And the listing is when they get their voice. Right? [00:58:29] S0: Yeah. Public markets don't remove founder control. They price it every quarter. [00:58:34] S1: You know, and I'll make the other case at full strength. Right? Founder control is the engine. Put that under a quarterly call, and you bought a slower bank. Both are true. And the IPO is where we find out which one the market believes.