The Exchanges

Q What time doesn't it get up in the morning?

A I mean, it depends in which country I am, right? Because, uh, the way I manage the business, I, I work one, two, three months from different countries, from different offices, and it depends which time zone I am, right? For example, if, if I'm in the UK, like probably I wake up, you know, six 30, you know, like Sometimes, you know, I train in the morning, uh, sometimes not, uh, but then I start at eight to nine a.m. If I'm somewhere in, uh, kind of, uh, Asia, right, then I start, you know, a bit later or much later, but then I work till, you know, 11 p.m. Um, if I'm in the U.S., then I need to start there early, like, you know, seven a.m. working.

AI assessment note: “if I'm in the UK, like probably I wake up, you know, six 30”

Q I never understand the U.S., Nick, if I'm honest, because like, the thing I love about Revolut is Revolut is the one company from Europe that shits on its U.S. counterparts. Like, China's the biggest, you know, player in the U.S., which is like a quarter of the size of Revolut, which is completely unique. Why has no one been able to win U.S. neobanking? I, I didn't understand that.

A Well, a thing there in U.S., um, First of all, so there is a culture in tech companies. They don't want to be regulated. Because they don't want to be regulated, they need to partner with a bank to use their license and use their platform. As soon as you partner with a bank and use their license, use their platform, you need to follow their processes, which are not automated, which are not built as a product. It slows you down. Plus on top, there is a compliance. Or the bank that needs to approve every single screen, every single, our marketing materials they own, and because they are not very efficient, it slows you down. Uh, plus, uh, because you're not a bank, you're not able to use your balance sheet or your deposits, so you cannot really do credit cards efficiently, and the U.S. is a credit-driven market, uh, and, uh, whatever a customer spends with a credit card, bank receives actually much more money from a machine compared to debit card, and banks, they, uh, effectively spend Part of this interchange to do, to give additional benefits to customers in AMI, also points. As a result, credit cards are much more attractive for customers compared to debit card. Well, as a result, you see fintechs purely partnering with the bank issuing debit cards, just not very attractive value proposition.

AI assessment note: “fintechs purely partnering with the bank issuing debit cards, just not very attractive”

Q How would you rate your relationship with the regulators today?

A It's actually much better, because, uh, again, because I was inexperienced, and I had this perception in my mind, which was, uh, um, well, not forced on me, but confirmed by, you know, many, many people, investors, that, because I'm young, right, I'm very, like, you know, techie, I should not speak with regulators, because they will not understand me. Instead, I should hire some gray hair, Banking CEO, who, who've been in the business for a long time, and now they need to speak with regulators. Uh, what I really found is, is actually very bad advice, right, because, uh, whenever you speak with regulators yourself, whenever you explain exactly in plain English what we do, how we do it, because you build it yourself, or I build it myself, right, I can explain it in very simple terms, and because we are also innovating a lot in these areas compared to legacy banks, Um, and, uh, you show data as well that our results are better compared to legacy banks. That's in the end what matters, right? If you show data, you show that. That's how you've been, like, you know, three or four years ago. That's how we do now. That's how other banks are doing. We are ahead of them. That's what matters. The problem with, uh, uh, traditional banking CEOs, they are not tech-driven at all. Um, and then they, they rather speak in the very vague jargon to hide Uh, their incompetency or their limited knowl…

AI assessment note: “It's actually much better, because, uh, again, because I was inexperienced”

Q I never understand the U.S., Nick, if I'm honest, because like, the thing I love about Revolut is Revolut is the one company from Europe that shits on its U.S. counterparts. Like, China's the biggest, you know, player in the U.S., which is like a quarter of the size of Revolut, which is completely unique. Why has no one been able to win U.S. neobanking? I, I didn't understand that.

A Well, a thing there in U.S., um, First of all, so there is a culture in tech companies. They don't want to be regulated. Because they don't want to be regulated, they need to partner with a bank to use their license and use their platform. As soon as you partner with a bank and use their license, use their platform, you need to follow their processes, which are not automated, which are not built as a product. It slows you down. Plus on top, there is a compliance. Or the bank that needs to approve every single screen, every single, our marketing materials they own, and because they are not very efficient, it slows you down. Uh, plus, uh, because you're not a bank, you're not able to use your balance sheet or your deposits, so you cannot really do credit cards efficiently, and the U.S. is a credit-driven market, uh, and, uh, whatever a customer spends with a credit card, bank receives actually much more money from a machine compared to debit card, and banks, they, uh, effectively spend Part of this interchange to do, to give additional benefits to customers in AMI, also points. As a result, credit cards are much more attractive for customers compared to debit card. Well, as a result, you see fintechs purely partnering with the bank issuing debit cards, just not very attractive value proposition.

AI assessment note: “fintechs purely partnering with the bank issuing debit cards, just not very attractive value proposition”

Q Which one, when you thought it would, did it not, most comes to mind?

A Uh, well, for example, uh, we launched salary events, uh, to compete with credit card. So the idea is that a person just, uh, well, receives salary in our account, uh, and then, uh, halfway through the period for the salary, uh, the passive button, we receive half of the salary. So it's pretty cool. So it competes with credit cards and it competes with loans, uh, much cheaper as well, but, uh, it didn't work for us because, uh, the whole conversion Funnel was very bad. First, you need to sell to enterprise and enterprise needs to sell to their employees. You also need to sell into payroll systems. If you look at conversions, I mean, uh, for, for a lot of effort, we ended up having, I don't know, like a hundred plus, uh, people using the solar transport. So we decided to just accept.

AI assessment note: “it didn't work for us because, uh, the whole conversion Funnel was very bad.”

Q What's been the biggest challenge with the crypto product?

A There were quite a few. I mean, the reality probably biggest challenge is different licenses in, in different countries and then different, uh, rules attached to these licenses. I remember when we received our crypto license, like several years ago in UK, there were certain rules attached to it, which actually caused, uh, Kind of, uh, 99% false positive. So, for example, a person wants to send money in crypto to another account, and then, uh, we will block this transfer because of certain rules imposed by regulator, but then in 99.9% of cases, we were wrong, you know, blocking this transfer because, I mean, transfer is, uh, was okay, right? It wasn't fraudulent. It wasn't. It took us, you know, some time to explain to regulator, show data that, uh, these rules that you imposed on us are actually wrong rules. We should, uh, kind of optimize it. Uh, and then, uh, we can capture, you know, more kind of, you know, fraudulent transfers, and then not waste time of, uh, like innocent people.

AI assessment note: “biggest challenge is different licenses in, in different countries and then different, uh, rules”

Q What do you think when you look forward now, you most need to work on in your own leadership style? Where are you like, I'm still not great, and I'd like to get better?

A Usually when I hire people in a new area that I haven't worked for. For example, when I started Revolut 10 years ago, I was hiring my first head of compliance, head of recruitment, head of people. I'm terrible at hiring in first roles. I never kind of, you know, worked before, so I ended up, you know, Uh, trying, you know, many people, uh, until, you know, I find the good ones. And I'm, I learned how to do it now, so every time when I hire a new role, uh, which I never hired before, I first interviewed the whole market, tried to learn for people how they do their job, and only after I learned how they do their job, I kind of, you know, select the best person for the job. Because reality, if you never kind of, you know, worked with the designers, You have zero skills to hire designers. You never worked in the reg affairs or government affairs. You have zero skills to assess who is good, who is not. So in order to first learn the skills, you need to interview like as many people from this area as possible. Then you learn and then you'll be able to select.

AI assessment note: “I'm terrible at hiring in first roles. I never kind of, you know, worked”

Q Which one, when you thought it would, did it not, most comes to mind?

A Uh, well, for example, uh, we launched salary events, uh, to compete with credit card. So the idea is that a person just, uh, well, receives salary in our account, uh, and then, uh, halfway through the period for the salary, uh, the passive button, we receive half of the salary. So it's pretty cool. So it competes with credit cards and it competes with loans, uh, much cheaper as well, but, uh, it didn't work for us because, uh, the whole conversion Funnel was very bad. First, you need to sell to enterprise and enterprise needs to sell to their employees. You also need to sell into payroll systems. If you look at conversions, I mean, uh, for, for a lot of effort, we ended up having, I don't know, like a hundred plus, uh, people using the solar transport. So we decided to just accept.

AI assessment note: “we launched salary events... but, uh, it didn't work for us”

Q What time doesn't it get up in the morning?

A I mean, it depends in which country I am, right? Because, uh, the way I manage the business, I, I work one, two, three months from different countries, from different offices, and it depends which time zone I am, right? For example, if, if I'm in the UK, like probably I wake up, you know, six 30, you know, like Sometimes, you know, I train in the morning, uh, sometimes not, uh, but then I start at eight to nine a.m. If I'm somewhere in, uh, kind of, uh, Asia, right, then I start, you know, a bit later or much later, but then I work till, you know, 11 p.m. Um, if I'm in the U.S., then I need to start there early, like, you know, seven a.m. working.

AI assessment note: “if I'm in the UK, like probably I wake up, you know, six 30”

Q How would you rate your relationship with the regulators today?

A It's actually much better, because, uh, again, because I was inexperienced, and I had this perception in my mind, which was, uh, um, well, not forced on me, but confirmed by, you know, many, many people, investors, that, because I'm young, right, I'm very, like, you know, techie, I should not speak with regulators, because they will not understand me. Instead, I should hire some gray hair, Banking CEO, who, who've been in the business for a long time, and now they need to speak with regulators. Uh, what I really found is, is actually very bad advice, right, because, uh, whenever you speak with regulators yourself, whenever you explain exactly in plain English what we do, how we do it, because you build it yourself, or I build it myself, right, I can explain it in very simple terms, and because we are also innovating a lot in these areas compared to legacy banks, Um, and, uh, you show data as well that our results are better compared to legacy banks. That's in the end what matters, right? If you show data, you show that. That's how you've been, like, you know, three or four years ago. That's how we do now. That's how other banks are doing. We are ahead of them. That's what matters. The problem with, uh, uh, traditional banking CEOs, they are not tech-driven at all. Um, and then they, they rather speak in the very vague jargon to hide Uh, their incompetency or their limited knowl…

AI assessment note: “It's actually much better, because, uh, again, because I was inexperienced”

Q What's been the biggest challenge with the crypto product?

A There were quite a few. I mean, the reality probably biggest challenge is different licenses in, in different countries and then different, uh, rules attached to these licenses. I remember when we received our crypto license, like several years ago in UK, there were certain rules attached to it, which actually caused, uh, Kind of, uh, 99% false positive. So, for example, a person wants to send money in crypto to another account, and then, uh, we will block this transfer because of certain rules imposed by regulator, but then in 99.9% of cases, we were wrong, you know, blocking this transfer because, I mean, transfer is, uh, was okay, right? It wasn't fraudulent. It wasn't. It took us, you know, some time to explain to regulator, show data that, uh, these rules that you imposed on us are actually wrong rules. We should, uh, kind of optimize it. Uh, and then, uh, we can capture, you know, more kind of, you know, fraudulent transfers, and then not waste time of, uh, like innocent people.

AI assessment note: “probably biggest challenge is different licenses in, in different countries and then different”

Q No, totally with you in terms of product wins. The trouble then is like, okay, product wins, but what to do next? So how do you fundamentally determine what to do next and what product to come out with next versus what to do later?

A When we first started, right, we were not very sophisticated about it. It was more like their entrepreneurial approach. Someone thinks, oh, you know, I think that's a good idea. People get excited and we build it, right? And, you know, sometimes things don't work out. Sometimes they work out. Now we're a bit more scientific about it, right? So we just, basically, we have standalone teams and people who just research what's going on in the world, pick up business models, pick up ideas, and we've actually prioritized based on our resources, based on our infrastructure, based on our customers. Which ideas or which business models or which products which are already there built in either a standalone country or standalone product we, we want to implement as well. Plus on top of it, we have our own ideas. And again, we go through kind of thought process in terms of how fast it will take us to build it. What is P&L potential there? What is engagement potential there? And so on. To summarize, before it was more like gut feel. Now it's a bit more sophisticated based on our internal ideas, priorities, Plus what's going on in the world.

AI assessment note: “we've actually prioritized based on our resources, based on our infrastructure, based on our customers”

Q No, I love that. I've read the book, but I haven't read the PDF, so I'm gonna check that one out. Tell me, this one was from Juliet at Bonn. She said, Reddit, GME, Robin Hood, Everything that happened there, is it a bubble or a shift in the consumer ownership of financial outcomes?

A I think it's a fundamental shift, right? Because in reality, if you think what happened before, you had yield generating deposits, right? So you could put money on deposit in the bank and make, you know, five, six, three percent, whatever, right? Depends on the country. That's number one. And number two, access to financial assets was not that accessible. You need to have, you know, private bank, I don't know, with the Swiss banks to be able to trade different asset classes, different stocks, different derivatives. Now what happened, deposits don't make you money. It just sits in your bank account, and some bank in Europe, they even charge you for deposits, right? Can you imagine it? And obviously now what happened, there are simple apps where you can upload money and then start buying and selling as yourself. So people try it because, you know, deposits either charge them money or they produce zero yield for them. So they try it, and then they become hooked because it's exciting. It's much better than sitting on, at least for many people, than sitting on Facebook and, you know, going through feed, right? It became a new entertainment for people. So that's why I think, you know, there is a fundamental shift, and it's not gonna go away.

AI assessment note: “I think it's a fundamental shift, right?”

Q I love that in terms of that realization. It's also one that I've had many former founders on the show, multi-billion dollar founders who were derivatives traders beforehand. In terms of your learnings from it, what did you learn from that time, you know, seven years in derivatives, and how did that impact your operating mentality?

A Well, good question. The key things I learned, I became very thick-skinned to anything. Believe me, if you're in derivatives trading, and then, you know, one day you lose Five million dollars, ten million dollars. You just become very thick skinned to any problem and become very calm headed, right? So I think, you know, that's, that was a lesson number one and training number one. Number two, I guess it was extremely focused because a lot of people are, well, at least in my experience, they can't focus very fast, right? And they can't switch their attention. And I think, you know, because I was in trading for seven years, especially in complex derivatives, Like, my attention spam, you know, became very short, but then it became very focused as well, so I kind of, you know, dive deep into any complex matter within one minute to a minute, kind of understand it, just because of this training. And I can switch, you know, between, you know, complex matters very quickly. Number three, I became extremely, I would say, model-driven and numbers-driven rather than intuition-driven. Like, when you do, like, you know, five, 10 trades a day based on intuition, sooner or later you realize the world doesn't work on the intuition, so you need somehow to To plan it in a better way rather than your intuition. So I became very model-driven and numbers-driven. So I think these are three things tha…

AI assessment note: “The key things I learned, I became very thick-skinned to anything.”

Q I love that in terms of that realization. It's also one that I've had many former founders on the show, multi-billion dollar founders who were derivatives traders beforehand. In terms of your learnings from it, what did you learn from that time, you know, seven years in derivatives, and how did that impact your operating mentality?

A Well, good question. The key things I learned, I became very thick-skinned to anything. Believe me, if you're in derivatives trading, and then, you know, one day you lose Five million dollars, ten million dollars. You just become very thick skinned to any problem and become very calm headed, right? So I think, you know, that's, that was a lesson number one and training number one. Number two, I guess it was extremely focused because a lot of people are, well, at least in my experience, they can't focus very fast, right? And they can't switch their attention. And I think, you know, because I was in trading for seven years, especially in complex derivatives, Like, my attention spam, you know, became very short, but then it became very focused as well, so I kind of, you know, dive deep into any complex matter within one minute to a minute, kind of understand it, just because of this training. And I can switch, you know, between, you know, complex matters very quickly. Number three, I became extremely, I would say, model-driven and numbers-driven rather than intuition-driven. Like, when you do, like, you know, five, 10 trades a day based on intuition, sooner or later you realize the world doesn't work on the intuition, so you need somehow to To plan it in a better way rather than your intuition. So I became very model-driven and numbers-driven. So I think these are three things tha…

AI assessment note: “The key things I learned, I became very thick-skinned to anything.”

Q No, totally with you in terms of product wins. The trouble then is like, okay, product wins, but what to do next? So how do you fundamentally determine what to do next and what product to come out with next versus what to do later?

A When we first started, right, we were not very sophisticated about it. It was more like their entrepreneurial approach. Someone thinks, oh, you know, I think that's a good idea. People get excited and we build it, right? And, you know, sometimes things don't work out. Sometimes they work out. Now we're a bit more scientific about it, right? So we just, basically, we have standalone teams and people who just research what's going on in the world, pick up business models, pick up ideas, and we've actually prioritized based on our resources, based on our infrastructure, based on our customers. Which ideas or which business models or which products which are already there built in either a standalone country or standalone product we, we want to implement as well. Plus on top of it, we have our own ideas. And again, we go through kind of thought process in terms of how fast it will take us to build it. What is P&L potential there? What is engagement potential there? And so on. To summarize, before it was more like gut feel. Now it's a bit more sophisticated based on our internal ideas, priorities, Plus what's going on in the world.

AI assessment note: “we've actually prioritized based on our resources, based on our infrastructure, based on our customers”

Q No, I love that. I've read the book, but I haven't read the PDF, so I'm gonna check that one out. Tell me, this one was from Juliet at Bonn. She said, Reddit, GME, Robin Hood, Everything that happened there, is it a bubble or a shift in the consumer ownership of financial outcomes?

A I think it's a fundamental shift, right? Because in reality, if you think what happened before, you had yield generating deposits, right? So you could put money on deposit in the bank and make, you know, five, six, three percent, whatever, right? Depends on the country. That's number one. And number two, access to financial assets was not that accessible. You need to have, you know, private bank, I don't know, with the Swiss banks to be able to trade different asset classes, different stocks, different derivatives. Now what happened, deposits don't make you money. It just sits in your bank account, and some bank in Europe, they even charge you for deposits, right? Can you imagine it? And obviously now what happened, there are simple apps where you can upload money and then start buying and selling as yourself. So people try it because, you know, deposits either charge them money or they produce zero yield for them. So they try it, and then they become hooked because it's exciting. It's much better than sitting on, at least for many people, than sitting on Facebook and, you know, going through feed, right? It became a new entertainment for people. So that's why I think, you know, there is a fundamental shift, and it's not gonna go away.

AI assessment note: “I think it's a fundamental shift, right?”

Q How many direct reports do you have, and how do you think about distributed management?

A So I've got, uh, 40 plus reports. I mean, to be honest, I, I built a team already for the last five years, so generally because I don't really work with people who are not excellent. Another way I define, uh, people who are excellent, strong, average, or below average is pretty simple. So, They should be like a self-guided missile, right? So excellent people, they select the goal themselves, when they press the button, then they reach the goal themselves. Strong people, you need to show them the goal and they reach the goal themselves without you iterating with them. Average people, you need on a weekly basis iterate to reach the goal. And then below average people, I mean, you iterate with them, but you know, sometimes, very often they don't reach the goal. So the key is to select all your direct reports, Either strong or excellent, so they're able to reach the goal themselves without you kind of directing them.

AI assessment note: “So I've got, uh, 40 plus reports.”

Q What do you think when you look forward now, you most need to work on in your own leadership style? Where are you like, I'm still not great, and I'd like to get better?

A Usually when I hire people in a new area that I haven't worked for. For example, when I started Revolut 10 years ago, I was hiring my first head of compliance, head of recruitment, head of people. I'm terrible at hiring in first roles. I never kind of, you know, worked before, so I ended up, you know, Uh, trying, you know, many people, uh, until, you know, I find the good ones. And I'm, I learned how to do it now, so every time when I hire a new role, uh, which I never hired before, I first interviewed the whole market, tried to learn for people how they do their job, and only after I learned how they do their job, I kind of, you know, select the best person for the job. Because reality, if you never kind of, you know, worked with the designers, You have zero skills to hire designers. You never worked in the reg affairs or government affairs. You have zero skills to assess who is good, who is not. So in order to first learn the skills, you need to interview like as many people from this area as possible. Then you learn and then you'll be able to select.

AI assessment note: “I'm terrible at hiring in first roles.”