- The Financial Times reported that a UK police unit is looking into a complaint about Revolut involving an incorrect payment to a customer of the fintech firm.
- The FT described it as a “fraud investigation,” but Revolut denied this and a City of London Police spokesperson said its fraud bureau does not have investigative powers. The FT has since withdrawn the article in question.
- It comes after a week from hell for the $1.7 billion fintech unicorn.
The Financial Times on Tuesday alleged that the UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) is examining a complaint from a customer, adding to Revolut’s issues after a difficult week for the fintech.
However, the allegations were denied by Revolut and the Financial Times article was subsequently taken down.
The FT, citing emails, reported on an incident in which £70,000 was incorrectly paid into a Revolut customer’s account.
The FT described it as a “fraud investigation,” but Revolut denied this and a City of London Police spokesperson said the unit does not have investigative powers. It declined to comment on the case specifically.
As for the payment, Revolut explained to Business Insider: "In this case the payment instructions that the non-Revolut customer provided were incorrect and so the funds never reached Revolut. Revolut was never in control of the funds."
A difficult week
Revolut's difficult week started last Thursday, when the Telegraph alleged that for three months last year, Revolut turned off software designed to stop money laundering and dubious money transfers.
The UK's financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, said that the agency had been in contact with the firm about whether Revolut acted appropriately in communicating with the regulator about the money-laundering control software.
Revolut, which confirmed discussions with the FCA, hit back in an open letter published last Friday.
"At no point during this time did we fail to meet our legal or regulatory requirements," said CEO Nik Storonsky in the letter. "We conducted a thorough review of all transactions that were processed during this time, which confirmed that there were no breaches."
Wired magazine piled on
Later last week, Wired piled on. The tech magazine published an exposé on the company's work culture, saying that applicants were asked to work for free, and that high staff turnover was hurting the company's image.
On Friday things only got worse. The Telegraph reported that CFO Peter O'Higgins, who joined Revolut in 2016, had secretly resigned in January. Revolut later confirmed in an email, adding that his departure was unrelated to the Telegraph's stories.
Revolut fired back at the Telegraph's claims. In emailed responses to Business Insider, CEO Nik Storonsky said that the software issue was part out of new system rollout:
"The new systems were not calibrated to a standard that we would expect, so we reverted to our existing process until calibration was complete," the CEO wrote. "At no point during this time do we believe that we failed to meet our legal or regulatory sanctions requirements."
Revolut declined to comment specifically on the Wired report about its workplace culture. In a blog post Nik Storonsky said "we haven't always gotten things right, and... we are not the same company that we were 12-18 months ago, when these mistakes were made."
