Revolut is preparing a secondary share sale in the second half of 2026 that would value the London-headquartered fintech at more than $100 billion, according to Bloomberg and the Financial Times, setting up a valuation staircase toward what investors briefed by the company describe as a $150 billion to $200 billion initial public offering. The float, when it comes, will be the largest European technology listing in history. Where it takes place may determine whether London remains a credible venue for the continent’s best companies.
The timing is pointed. Wise completes its primary-listing transfer from London to Nasdaq on 11 May — ten days from now — taking one of the City’s most visible fintech tickers across the Atlantic. Revolut’s decision, likely to crystallise in 2028, will land in a market still absorbing that departure and waiting for the Treasury’s listings-reform package.
The numbers behind the ambition
Revolut’s 2025 annual results, published on 24 March, delivered the financial credibility the IPO narrative required. Revenue rose 46 per cent to £4.5 billion, pre-tax profit climbed 57 per cent to a record £1.7 billion ($2.3 billion), and the active retail customer base grew to 68.3 million across more than 100 countries. The loans portfolio expanded 120 per cent to £2.2 billion, a line that will compound rapidly now that the Prudential Regulation Authority granted the company its full UK banking licence on 11 March 2026 — ending a three-year mobilisation period that had frustrated management and investors in equal measure.
The licence is more than a regulatory badge. It brings Revolut’s 13 million UK customers under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for deposits up to £120,000, opens the door to consumer credit and mortgage products, and provides a template for the US national bank charter application filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on 5 March. Revolut has committed $500 million to the US market and appointed a new US chief executive, signalling that the American expansion is an operational priority rather than a strategic aspiration.
Co-founder and chief executive Nik Storonsky told Bloomberg on 20 April that an IPO was ‘at least two years away’, a timeline consistent with the secondary-sale sequencing: the November 2025 round at $75 billion, followed by a planned H2 2026 round above $100 billion, building a track record of rising private-market valuations that underwrite the eventual public offering.
The venue question London cannot afford to lose
Revolut has consistently signalled openness to a London listing, and the Sunday Times reported that a dual listing in London and New York was being ‘widely discussed’ in City circles. If completed at the mooted scale, it would make Revolut one of the top 15 companies on the London Stock Exchange and place it firmly inside the FTSE 100 from day one — a category of listing London has not attracted from a UK-born technology company since the exchange reformed its rules in December 2024.
The political context is acute. Wise’s departure to Nasdaq, Quantinuum’s US listing signals, and Arm’s 2023 decision to list exclusively in New York have left the Treasury scrambling to prove that reformed listing rules and the Mansion House pension-capital pipeline can retain Britain’s best companies. The Sovereign AI Unit, launched on 16 April with £500 million of co-investment capital, was partly designed as a retention tool. But venture co-investment and IPO venue are different problems, and the latter requires liquid secondary markets, deep analyst coverage and institutional demand at scale — areas where New York retains a structural advantage for technology names.
The FCA’s December 2024 listing-rules overhaul removed several historical barriers, including restrictions on dual-class share structures that would previously have blocked Storonsky’s supervoting arrangements. The Mansion House Compact is slowly raising pension-fund allocations to unlisted equities. Whether those reforms translate into the kind of aftermarket liquidity and valuation support a $150 billion technology company demands is the practical test.
What the City is watching
Three markers will shape the venue decision over the next twelve months. First, the H2 2026 secondary sale: its execution quality, investor composition and final valuation will reveal whether the $100 billion threshold can be cleared in private markets without US-only pricing. Second, the OCC’s response to the US bank charter application — a licence would deepen Revolut’s American franchise and tilt the gravitational pull of US capital markets further. Third, the Treasury’s listings-reform package, expected before year-end, which will signal whether Westminster is willing to offer fiscal or structural incentives specifically targeted at retaining companies of Revolut’s scale.
For now, Revolut is doing what well-advised pre-IPO companies do: building the numbers, expanding the franchise and keeping every venue option open. For London, the calculus is simpler. Losing Wise is uncomfortable. Losing Revolut would be a verdict.
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