The Financial Times reported on Sept. 23 that both firms received conditional U.S. banking charters this year, with Nubank officially launching its U.S. offering in September and Revolut preparing to leverage the approval ahead of a planned 2028 initial public offering.
Revolut, the United Kingdom‑based neobank valued at roughly $115 billion, has built a customer base of 80 million across 40 countries and holds banking licences in the U.K. and France. The firm now faces the task of justifying its lofty valuation as it seeks to break into the U.S. market, which is dominated by a mix of community banks, Wall Street giants and credit‑card issuers.
Nubank, the largest private‑sector lender in Brazil, has expanded beyond its home market into Mexico and Colombia and, as of this month, began offering services in the United States. The company’s rapid growth has been fueled by a focus on younger, digitally native consumers, a demographic that the PYMNTS Intelligence report identified as key to neobank success.
Investors see the United States as the “biggest prize.” Nigel Morris, co‑founder of Capital One and managing partner at QED Investors – a backer of Nubank – told the Financial Times, “If you crack the U.S., it’s bigger than all of Europe.” The firms are betting on what the report described as an “unusually lax regulatory window” to gain a foothold before tighter rules potentially close the entry path.
The push comes amid cautionary examples from other foreign fintechs. Monzo, for instance, announced earlier this year that it would withdraw from the U.S. to concentrate on its European operations, underscoring the difficulty of gaining traction in a market with layered regulations and entrenched incumbents.
Analysts note that success in the United States could lift both companies’ valuations further, while failure would reinforce the challenges foreign digital banks face when confronting the country’s complex financial‑services landscape.