Finance chief resigns from fast-growing Revolut as company experiences technical issues

Revolut's chief financial officer has stepped down in favour of a replacement with more retail banking experience as the British fintech faces growing questions over its ability to effectively manage its rapid growth, the Financial Times reports.

Peter O'Higgins, who joined Revolut in 2016 after more than a decade as an investment banker at JPMorgan, resigned last month, the company confirmed on Friday. His departure was first reported by the Telegraph.

Revolut has expanded exponentially during O'Higgins tenure, from a start-up that had only recently raised its Series A funding round, to a licensed bank with more than three million customers. However, a series of recent setbacks have prompted concern about the company's internal culture and the quality of compliance controls. 

Chief executive Nikolay Storonsky has long been public about the intensity of working for the company, once telling the Financial Times, "I can't see how work-life balance will help you to build a start-up". But last year Revolut was criticised for demanding prospective employees work for free as part of a job application process, and it has suffered from high levels of staff turnover, including in key positions such as head of compliance and the people in charge of its expansion into individual countries.

The company discovered a spate of suspected money laundering on its network last year, and this week it was reported that it had "erroneous[ly]" switched off a system that was supposed to detect suspicious activity for three months.  Earlier this month the Advertising Standards Authority referred it to the city watchdog over a "spoof" advertising campaign, and it also faces a parliamentary probe in Lithuania, where it secured its banking licence in December. Its local head of business development in Lithuania left the bank shortly after the furore began.

Revolut stressed that O'Higgins' departure was not linked to any compliance issues, FT reports. Mr Storonsky said: "As someone who has worked side by side with Peter for almost three years, he has been absolutely pivotal to our success, and I cannot begin to express my gratitude for his commitment, enthusiasm and accomplishments to date." Mr O'Higgins said: "As Revolut begins to scale globally and applies to become a bank in multiple jurisdictions, the time has come to pass the reins over to someone who has global retail banking experience at this level. My time at Revolut has been invaluable and I'm so proud of what myself and the team have achieved. There is no doubt in my mind that Revolut will go on to build one of the largest and most trusted financial institutions in the world."

Separately, the company said on Friday morning that technical issues were affecting several key functions including top ups and currency exchanging. In a tweet mid-morning it said engineers were "on the case" and would provide an update as soon as possible.

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