Revolut co-founders sacrifice their salaries amid ongoing coronavirus outbreak

via AltFi

Revolut founders Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko and some executive staff are forgoing their salaries for a year to help keep the banking service afloat.

The fintech, first reported by Financial News, appears to have followed in the footsteps of its competitor Monzo, who announced earlier this month that CEO Tom Blomfield wouldn’t receive a salary for 12 months and executive staff got 25 per cent pay cuts. 

The financial app has also apparently offered staff the opportunity to swap a proportion of their salaries for shares.

According to the report, the salary swap scheme will allow staff to swap £1 of salary for £2 worth of shares in the e-money institution.

Revolut, like many other fintechs, has begun to feel the financial pinch because of lockdowns customers are spending more conservatively and travelling less, hurting the digital banking service’s revenue.

Just under a month ago, Revolut had to quash rumours of financial difficulty after a slew of fake news about the company was spread via WhatsApp.

In a message sent to the bank’s customers, Nikolay Storonsky said: “I want to make clear that for Revolut it’s business as usual.”

The fintech is currently valued at $5.5bn following a mammoth $500m Series D funding round earlier this year. 

Despite the current economic uncertainty, Revolut is reportedly seeking a British Banking licence, after having operated in the UK for five years without one.