Revolut granted full French banking licence, can now offer expanded services

British neobank Revolut has been granted a full French banking licence, allowing it to expand its services for European clients and move ahead with plans to open a major office in Paris. 

Authorisation was jointly given by the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) and European Central Bank. It is the latest full banking licence offered to the group, following the UK, Australia, and Mexico, as well as Lithuania in 2018.

Revolut locked horns with the European Central Bank in 2025, after the latter restricted its ability to offer new financial products in Europe following concerns over the neobank’s risk and compliance controls.

The authorisation comes soon after the bank announced plans to open a ‘Western Europe’ office headquartered in Paris.  

The new office is part of a €1 billion investment in Western Europe and will bring 600 new jobs across the continent, 400 of which will be located in Paris.

The bank will retain offices in Lithuania and its main global headquarters in London. 

Around seven million French residents hold a Revolut account.

The new institution, officially named Revolut Bank S.A. will “progressively begin serving customers across Europe, starting with France, with other European markets including Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain to follow in subsequent phases,” the bank said in a press release.

What changes for existing – and new – customers? 

The acquisition of a full French banking licence allows Revolut to set itself apart from many other neobanks that only have partial licences and cannot offer full banking services. 

Revolut already had the ability to offer partial banking services in Europe, such as opening current and basic savings accounts, certain investment portfolios, etc, after obtaining a full Lithuanian banking licence in 2018. 

As Lithuania is an EU member state, this allowed the group to offer accounts across the bloc, including in France. These accounts use a Lithuanian IBAN.

However, as the full licence only applied to Lithuania, it could not offer a complete range of banking services elsewhere in the bloc including France, nor was it provided the protection a high-street bank receives in France, which extended into the limited protections it could offer to client accounts.

Now that a full licence has been granted, the bank will be able to offer European clients services such as mortgages and a wider range of savings accounts and financial products.

In France, this will include government-regulated and tax-free savings products such as the Livret A and Livret de développement durable et solidaire (LDDS).

As Revolut progressively transfers customers to its new French banking entity, eligible deposits will come under France's deposit-guarantee scheme, the Fonds de garantie des dépôts et de résolution (FGDR), which protects deposits up to €100,000 per depositor.

“France has become a leading financial hub, supported by a dynamic financial ecosystem and a robust regulatory framework,” said Revolut founder and chief executive Nik Storonsky in a press release following the authorisation. 

“It is the ideal platform to accelerate Revolut’s next phase of growth — bringing us one step closer to our ambition of becoming one of Europe’s largest and most trusted banks”.

It is unclear if residents in France will see existing accounts slowly migrated to a ‘French account’ with a French IBANs and other accessories, or if this will only apply to new accounts opened following the granting of a full licence. 

Existing customers will however be informed of any changes through communication from the bank.