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Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

standard.co.uk

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Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#61

Post by Incipient »

Mistletoe wrote: post #30
krona wrote: post #16

The Revolut UK banking chief executive also just quit 'for unrelated reasons' after texting a death threat to a customer: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/13/revolut-exec...

> He has taken up a new executive role at telecoms business Lycamobile. Unbelievable. It’s impossible for people in this caste to fail.

Haha it's absolutely hilarious. You can fail so utterly maliciously and just get your best mate at another company to hire you on 10x salary. Absolute. Gold.

In an unrelated matter, experts are baffled at the ongoing weakness in the banking sector.

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#62

Post by ztrww »

SilverBirch wrote: post #59

This is really quite very very bad. I remember someone on twitter a while ago pointing out they keep missing the deadline for publishing their accounts. Like one of the things I would be quite keen to do if I were applying for a banking license would be to make sure I'm getting the paperwork right. Given that Revolut have raiesd enormous amounts of cash, I'd imagine they're pretty keen to IPO, and to do that they nee…

> and to do that they need a UK banking license

Why does it specifically have to be an UK banking license?

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#63

Post by ztrww »

zx8080 wrote: post #49
silisili wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article seemed to imply the customer had been texting complaints directly to the executive, not that the executive just cold texted a customer a weird threat.

It's hard to believe a normal person would death-threat some random contact instead of blocking.

True. But since he said that he’ll be waiting at his own home that probably means that the unhappy customer was threatening to visit him which is also a bit scary…

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#64

Post by jlokier »

tzs wrote: post #38
rchaud wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're providing financial services in a heaivily regulated industry, it's not that big of a leap. The company has a pending application for a UK banking license for the past 28 months; the turnaround time for that in the UK is 12 months. Yet even now, they have filed their accounts several months late, and without a clean bill of health from the auditor. The CFO of all people should have advised withdrawal of the…

> The company has a pending application for a UK banking license for the past 28 months; the turnaround time for that in the UK is 12 months Wow...I'm a bit surprised. We've had a pending application for VAT registration in the UK since sometime in the 1st quarter of 2019. I had assumed that if a government is so short of resources that they can't manage to process applications to collect taxes for them, they would p…

I did a UK VAT registration in 2020 and it took about a month. I did one back in 2005 or so and it took a similar time. Years is exceptionally slow.

The "additional fee" process is only intended to cover a few months at most. It doesn't work for a long period as your customers can't claim back the amount paid until they receive a replacement invoice formally recordable as VAT, when your registration comes through. If "additional fee" is done for longer, that creates a situation where you end up having to lower your price to business customers who normally don't count VAT in the price because they can quickly reclaim it, but you are still paying VAT on that income (by having to set it aside). That combo is not how VAT is supposed to work.

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#65

Post by rchaud »

ztrww wrote: post #62
SilverBirch wrote: post #59

This is really quite very very bad. I remember someone on twitter a while ago pointing out they keep missing the deadline for publishing their accounts. Like one of the things I would be quite keen to do if I were applying for a banking license would be to make sure I'm getting the paperwork right. Given that Revolut have raiesd enormous amounts of cash, I'd imagine they're pretty keen to IPO, and to do that they nee…

> and to do that they need a UK banking license Why does it specifically have to be an UK banking license?

That's where they're headquartered.

Also in 2008, the UK had an issue where 350k residents had deposits at Icesave, a savings account offered by Landsbanki in Iceland, that went bust. The bank wasn't registered in the UK, and the government of Iceland refused to provide compensation for those that lost their deposits. They probably want to avoid a repeat of that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#66

Post by toyg »

SilverBirch wrote: post #59

This is really quite very very bad. I remember someone on twitter a while ago pointing out they keep missing the deadline for publishing their accounts. Like one of the things I would be quite keen to do if I were applying for a banking license would be to make sure I'm getting the paperwork right. Given that Revolut have raiesd enormous amounts of cash, I'd imagine they're pretty keen to IPO, and to do that they nee…

They counted on their chumminess with the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who's been an outspoken supporter of Revolut. Iirc a report from Private Eye, there is a hint of an ongoing cold war between the PM's henchmen telling bank regulators to let them get the license, and regulators resisting - likely because nobody wants to be responsible for authorizing a business that clearly doesn't meet the necessary requirements in very obvious ways.

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#67

Post by toyg »

dogma1138 wrote: post #45
riffraff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolut has had a fee questionable moments already, this does not seem to have been the case for other European fintech operations (wise, klarna, n26 etc). So yeah, I think a lot of fintech is not particularly good, but I don't think we can generalize to the level of the crypto boom.

The FCA (UK regulator) is also refusing to issue them a banking license, even a challenger bank one. It is still operating under their Lithuanian banking license. I really don’t understand why so many people in the UK use it as the deposits are not FSCS protected so if something goes wrong you’re fuck out of luck.

It always was a very simple way to handle remittances for European migrants, and to get travel money for everyone else. Some people then got carried away, probably because their PR was always pretty good.

I had to warn a friend of mine who kept 5-digit savings in there. He didn't know about the lack of banking license (and this was even before they got the Lithuanian one) and was pretty shocked.

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#68

Post by detaro »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #60
dogma1138 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FCA (UK regulator) is also refusing to issue them a banking license, even a challenger bank one. It is still operating under their Lithuanian banking license. I really don’t understand why so many people in the UK use it as the deposits are not FSCS protected so if something goes wrong you’re fuck out of luck.

> I really don’t understand why so many people in the UK use it as the deposits are not FSCS protected so if something goes wrong you’re fuck out of luck. I wonder if this is the kind of lesson that needs to be re-learned every few generations?

The last high-profile UK example isn't that long ago (icelandic banks last time)?

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#69

Post by heavenlyblue »

ztrww wrote: post #63
zx8080 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe a normal person would death-threat some random contact instead of blocking.

True. But since he said that he’ll be waiting at his own home that probably means that the unhappy customer was threatening to visit him which is also a bit scary…

Can you please link the URL where that conversation is actually disclosed?

Re: Revolut CFO quits after auditor BDO warning

#70

Post by SilverBirch »

ztrww wrote: post #62
SilverBirch wrote: post #59

This is really quite very very bad. I remember someone on twitter a while ago pointing out they keep missing the deadline for publishing their accounts. Like one of the things I would be quite keen to do if I were applying for a banking license would be to make sure I'm getting the paperwork right. Given that Revolut have raiesd enormous amounts of cash, I'd imagine they're pretty keen to IPO, and to do that they nee…

> and to do that they need a UK banking license Why does it specifically have to be an UK banking license?

Two things: first they’re a bank, in the Uk, it looks terrible to not have a banking license and that’d kill their IPO price. Second, there are limitations on customer deposits and the services they can provide because they aren’t a bank, for example they aren’t currently Uk equivalent of FDIC insured. There’s basically an assumption that their banking license will massively help both their growth and their value per customer.
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