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Fintech & Funding

Revolut Says 2028. Monzo Just Posted £1.7bn Of Revenue. Britain's Two Best Fintechs Are Ready To List - The Question Is Where

Britain has produced two of the most valuable digital banks in the world and neither is in a hurry to float. Revolut - valued at $75bn in its last secondary sale, holding a UK banking licence since March and pursuing a US charter - says it is roughly two years from going public, and is reported to be weighing New York or a dual listing over London. Monzo's FY2026 results, published in May, show revenue up 39% to £1.7bn, adjusted profit up 20% to £172.6m, statutory pre-tax profit up 44% to £87.3m, a record three million new customers taking it to 15.2 million, and an exit from the US to focus on the UK and Europe ahead of a £6-10bn listing. As Sibos asks whether fintech IPOs are back, the real question for London is whether it will host them - and what a fintech's technology has to look like to survive public-market scrutiny.

AlchmAI Editorial12 min read

$75bn

Revolut's valuation at its last secondary share sale, up from $45bn in August 2024 and $33bn in 2021 - with a listing not before 2028

£1.7bn

Monzo FY2026 revenue, up 39%, with adjusted pre-tax profit up 20% to £172.6m and statutory pre-tax profit up 44% to £87.3m

15.2m

Monzo customers after a record three million added in the year, its third consecutive profitable year

£6-10bn

Reported valuation range for a Monzo listing, after the bank exited the US in April 2026 to focus on the UK and Europe

There is an argument, made regularly in the City, that London has lost its ability to produce globally significant technology companies. The two best counterexamples are both banks, both founded within a mile of each other, and both currently declining to list anywhere. That paradox - Britain builds them, and then cannot be sure of keeping them - is the fintech story of September 2026.

Revolut is the larger case. Its most recent secondary share sale valued it at around $75bn, up from $45bn in August 2024 and $33bn in 2021, making it Europe's most valuable fintech. It secured a full UK banking licence in March 2026 and is pursuing a US national bank charter. And its chief executive, Nikolay Storonsky, has said the company is roughly two years from going public - pushing any debut into 2028 at the earliest - with reasons that read as a checklist for a company that intends to arrive on public markets as a regulated bank rather than a fintech story: licences secured, sustained profitability demonstrated, global expansion further along, and control over timing, pricing and narrative retained. The uncomfortable detail for London is that despite its UK headquarters and its new UK licence, Revolut is reported to be weighing a US or dual listing rather than a straightforward London one.

Why Neither Is In A Hurry

The Sibos 2026 conversation about whether fintech IPOs are back misses the more interesting point: the best candidates do not need the money. Revolut and Monzo are profitable, well capitalised and able to raise on the secondary market at rising valuations. A public listing offers them liquidity for early investors and staff, a currency for acquisitions and the credibility of a listed bank - all real - but it costs them quarterly scrutiny, disclosure of the unit economics they would rather competitors did not see, and a share price that reacts to every regulatory headline. When you are growing revenue at 39% a year on your own cash flow, the calculus for waiting is straightforward.

There is also a lesson in the sequencing both have chosen. Revolut spent years and considerable expense obtaining a UK banking licence before contemplating a float; Monzo shut a US expansion that was consuming capital to present investors with a cleaner, more profitable footprint. Both are behaving like the regulated institutions they have become rather than the growth-at-any-cost companies of the last cycle, and the public markets they eventually reach will price them accordingly.

The London Question, Argued From London

We are a London firm and we will make the London case without apology - and then say where it falls short. The case is that these companies exist because of London: a deep financial-services labour market, a regulator that granted them licences other jurisdictions would not, a capital market that funded them through every round, and a customer base that adopted digital banking faster than almost any in the world. London accounts for around 79% of UK fintech investment and remains Europe's deepest fintech market by investor depth. A Revolut or Monzo listing here would be the largest financial technology IPO in the exchange's history and would do more for the City's standing than any amount of listing-rule reform.

Where the case falls short is valuation and liquidity, and the honest response is to say so rather than to pretend. US markets have paid higher multiples for growth financials, have deeper pools of the specialist investors who understand a digital bank, and offer the retail trading liquidity that supports a $75bn market capitalisation on day one. A dual listing is a reasonable compromise and the City should welcome it rather than treat it as a defeat. The version of this story that ends badly for London is not a dual listing; it is a London headquarters and a New York-only ticker, which is what will happen if the argument is made on sentiment rather than on the mechanics that actually decide where a company floats.

“London did the hard part - it built the banks. Whether it hosts the listings depends on whether it can offer a $75bn company the depth of ownership it will find in New York, and that is a plumbing problem, not a patriotism problem.”

What A Fintech's Technology Has To Look Like Before It Lists

This is where our own work intersects with the story, and it is the part the IPO commentary rarely covers. A private fintech can run on ingenuity and a tolerance for operational risk. A listed bank cannot, and the technology conversations that happen in the eighteen months before a float are remarkably consistent across the firms we work with.

  1. 01Operational resilience becomes a disclosure item. Public-company investors and the PRA both want evidence that critical services survive a provider outage, a cyber event or a bad deploy - not a policy stating that they will. Tested failover, measured recovery times and a resilience record are pre-IPO deliverables.
  2. 02Unit economics have to be reconstructible per customer, per product, per channel. The £1.7bn and the £87m are the headline; the analyst questions will be about the cost to serve a business account versus a personal one, and the answer has to come from systems, not spreadsheets.
  3. 03Compliance and controls have to scale with the customer count, not the headcount. Adding three million customers a year without adding proportionate onboarding, monitoring and complaints staff is only possible with automation that regulators can inspect - the same segmented outcome monitoring the FCA's Consumer Duty now expects.
  4. 04The customer interface is the product, and it is what the public market values. Both banks won on the app. Sustaining that lead at 15 million and 60 million customers respectively means banking portals and interfaces engineered for scale, security and continuous change, with the internal tooling to match.
  5. 05AI has to be governable before it is impressive. Both banks are deploying AI across service, fraud and operations, and a listed bank's AI has to come with the decision records, human-oversight evidence and provider-concentration answers that the regulator and the audit committee will both ask for.

The Bottom Line

Revolut at $75bn and not listing before 2028, Monzo at £1.7bn of revenue, £87m of profit and 15.2 million customers with a £6-10bn float in view: Britain has built two of the world's best digital banks, and neither needs the public markets badly enough to hurry. That is a strength, not a problem. The problem is that when they do list, London is competing with New York for the privilege, and it will win on the mechanics of depth and valuation or not at all. For the wider industry the more useful lesson is in how both companies have prepared - licences before listings, profitability before expansion, and technology that can be explained from its own records - because that is what a fintech has to look like before public-market scrutiny arrives. As a fintech and AI engineering firm in London, we see that preparation from the inside, and it is the part of the IPO story that decides whether a company arrives on the market as a bank or as a bet.

References & Further Reading

Fintech AI Agency LondonRevolut IPOMonzo resultsLondon listingAI Agency LondonBanking Portals & InterfacesEnterprise-Grade Security & Scalability
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AlchmAI Editorial

Research and analysis, London

The AlchmAI team writes about the markets, technology and regulation we work with every day. We build trading platforms, real-time charts and AI analysis tools for brokers, prop firms and fintech teams from our office in Mayfair, London. Every article lists its sources. Nothing we publish is investment advice.

This article is general information and commentary. It is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any investment. Important information

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