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British fintech Revolut<\/a> \u2014 now launching in India \u2014 says cross-border payments remain one of India\u2019s most underserved financial services. By its estimate, Indians spend about $30 billion overseas every year and lose around $600 million in bank charges \u2014 fees its India head calls \u201ccriminal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been the preserve of banks,\u201d Paroma Chatterjee, Revolut India CEO, told TechCrunch. \u201cYou go to your bank to take currency, foreign exchange out from your bank, or you take a travel card that is issued by your bank when you\u2019re traveling overseas \u2026 there have been humongous charges which have been levied on this.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2021, Revolut has been working toward its India launch, aiming to fill what it sees as gaps in the country\u2019s foreign exchange and traditional payments spaces. The London-headquartered fintech acquired Arvog Forex<\/a> in 2022 to obtain a license and offer remittance and multi-currency account services in India. In April this year, it also secured a prepaid payment instrument (PPI) license<\/a> from the Reserve Bank of India, allowing it to issue prepaid cards, support digital wallets and integrate with the government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI).<\/p>\n With these regulatory approvals, Revolut aims to challenge traditional banks in India and compete with existing fintech players. The British startup is targeting more than 150 million \u201cglobally aspiring, digitally native\u201d Indians aged between 25 and 45, with plans to onboard about 20 million users by 2030 and process at least $7 billion worth of their transactions.<\/p>\n Chatterjee said that such regulatory approvals \u2014 including the PPI license \u2014 allows the fintech to offer a more differentiated experience than players that rely on bank partnerships. \u201cWe can deliver the kind of customer experience that we want to deliver,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Revolut will offer Indian consumers a prepaid wallet with UPI support and its own branded UPI handles, along with a domestic Visa card and an international multi-currency Visa card. It will also introduce dedicated kids and teens accounts linked to parents\u2019 profiles, a subscription-based model, and budgeting and analytics tools that provide insights into spending habits.<\/p>\n Notably, the startup has regulatory permissions to enable both domestic and international payments and transfers through its platform. It also has authorization to enable same-day remittances from India through a local bank partner.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> Unlike many Indian fintech players that use minimum know-your-customer (KYC) checks to quickly onboard users for limited, low-value transactions, Revolut will offer only full-KYC wallets. The fintech will also verify new users against global sanctions lists, including those maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the United Nations. This approach, Chatterjee said, is aimed at attracting \u201chigh-intent customers\u201d who are willing to complete a more detailed onboarding process, including Aadhaar and video verification.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody would do that only if they\u2019re interested in using the product. So, this full KYC customer onboarded is going to be my customer metric,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a country like India, once you list yourself on the App Store, sheer curiosity drives downloads,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s not our metric of success.\u201d<\/p>\n The fintech also aims to measure its success in India by the depth of user engagement and profitability and not merely increasing its user base.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are people who talk about having 300\u2013400 million customers,\u201d Chatterjee told TechCrunch. \u201cRevolut globally in 39 countries has 65 million customers, and it is valued at $75 billion. The reason is that from these 65 million customers, Revolut is processing more than $4 billion worth of transactions and delivering more than a billion dollars worth of profit. And that is because out of those 65 million customers in any given month, more than 25 million customers are active.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s referring to the the new valuation Revolut announced last month<\/a> on the back of a secondary share sale, that boosted it from $45 billion last summer. <\/p>\n Revolut already has a waitlist of more than 350,000 people in India, she also said, which it plans to onboard by later this year before opening the app to new users. The exact launch timeline, however, will depend on how quickly the company clears the waitlist and customers complete their KYC and anti\u2013money laundering (AML) checks.<\/p>\n The startup is also exploring partners other than Visa, including the Indian government\u2019s RuPay, as it ramps up the product to provide customers with a choice of networks.<\/p>\n
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