Podcast

Revolut’s Path to 50 Million Customers.

February 7, 2025 · Hosted by Dexter Cousins

Matt Baxby – Revolut

Dexter welcomes back friend of the show, Matt Baxby, CEO of Revolut Australia, to talk about their remarkable growth to 50 million customers globally.

It’s been five years since Tier One People placed Matt into the Country CEO role at Revolut. Matt shares his journey over the last five years, discusses the challenges and strategies involved in building a digital bank in Australia, the importance of reaching profitability, and the unique approach Revolut has taken to integrate technology with consumer needs.

Matt shares his insights on leadership, team building, and the future of consumer banking with Dexter.

About Revolut

Launched in 2015. Revolut’s global mission is for every person and business to handle their money in just a few taps, removing the friction that gets in the way of your money goals.

Revolut delivers faster, better, smarter products to lover 50 million customers across the globe.

The Revolut platform gives you access to investments and your money effortlessly and across borders.

About Matt Baxby

Matt is a strategic and people-oriented leader with diverse experience across consumer-facing businesses facing disruption or significant regulatory change.

He has broad finance services sector experience – particularly consumer banking – from start-ups to an ASX-listed company with an established market position.

Matt embodies the entrepreneurial spirit from a decade with the Virgin Group combined with the discipline and scaled leadership as the Group Executive – Retail Banking and then Group CFO of the Bank of Queensland.

Key Takeaways

Revolut aims to be a single place for managing financial life.
The company has grown to over 800,000 customers in Australia.
Revolut has achieved profitability at both group and local levels.
Building a strong local team is crucial for success in new markets.
The fintech landscape is maturing, with significant challenges for startups.
Australia’s remittance market presents a unique opportunity for Revolut.
A strong focus on technology and innovation is essential for differentiation.
Leadership qualities include action orientation and adaptability.
The importance of a clear strategy in a fast-paced environment.
Talent acquisition is critical for long-term success.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:41 Revolut’s growth over the past decade

02:28 Profitability and Financial Milestones

05:14 Building a Digital Bank: Lessons Learned

09:58 Opportunities in the Australian Market

10:53 Remittance Flows and Market Disruption

12:19 Future Product Offerings with a Banking License

17:29 Matt’s Unique Journey in Fintech

24:31 Building a Cohesive and Effective Team

29:30 What is the BIG Opportunity for Fintech in 2025?

32:13 Looking Ahead: Revolut’s Future in Australia

Links & Resources:

Visit Revolut website
Connect with Matt Baxby
Connect with Dexter Cousins
Learn more about Tier One People

What happened next.

A year after this episode, Matt was back on the show. Revolut Australia passed 1 million customers at the end of January 2026, having made its first annual profit, $4.4 million, in 2024. Revolut Business transaction volumes had grown 235% in a year, Revolut had launched merchant acquiring in Australia, and its application for an APRA banking licence was still in progress.

Links from this episode.

Matt Baxby on Fintech Chatter.

Full transcript.

Lightly edited for readability — filler words removed, wording otherwise unchanged.

Dexter Cousins
Fintech Chatter Podcast, brought to you by Tier One People, the leaders in executive search for fintech ventures.

How do you get to 50 million customers? That’s the question I get answered by this week’s guest on Fintech Chatter podcast. I’m Dexter Cousins, your host and the founder of Tier One People, the executive search firm dedicated to connecting high-growth fintech companies like Wise, Revolut and Lendi to exceptional fintech leaders. Today’s guest is Matt Baxby, Australia CEO of Revolut. Matt makes a welcome return to the show to share their growth plans in Australia and celebrate his fifth-year anniversary with Revolut. It’s an incredible journey, going from 4 million to 50 million customers. Make sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, or subscribe on YouTube for more great interviews with fintech leaders like Matt.

I’m joined today by good old friend of the show, Matt Baxby, CEO of Revolut. Matt, welcome back.

Matt Baxby
Dexter, fantastic to be here. This might be my third appearance, so…

Dexter Cousins
I think it’s actually your fourth.

Matt Baxby
Oh, there you go.

Dexter Cousins
Last one was two years ago. So Matt, I mean, Revolut should need no introduction, but for anybody who’s listening who isn’t aware of Revolut, can you tell our listeners a little bit about the big problem that you solve?

Matt Baxby
I guess the big problem we’re trying to solve is a single place for people to manage their entire financial life. Dex, you think of your own personal circumstances, you tend to have an app for each problem in your financial life, or enabling that. We’ve tried to bring all that together, the idea being one app, all things money. So that’s really been our focus for the last few years now.

Dexter Cousins
Your role, you’re Australian and New Zealand CEO. We’re going to talk a little bit more, but we’re actually celebrating a five-year anniversary with Revolut, I think, this month. Before we go into what the last five years has been about, maybe if you could tell us just a bit more about Revolut, your customers, size of the business, how long you’ve been around, but also how that ties in to the bigger Revolut business as well.

Matt Baxby
Yeah, 100%. As you say, I joined five years ago, so it’s almost hard to believe that’s gone incredibly quickly. But when I joined the business we had three or four people on the ground. Australia was the first expansion market for Revolut outside the UK and Europe, and so in a lot of ways we’ve had to forge some paths in terms of growing our business. But if I fast forward to where we’ve got to on that, we’ve just clicked over a bit over 800,000 customers using the Revolut app. Incredibly diverse customer base. Early on we saw a big skew to younger early adopters, but as we’ve diversified the product and probably expanded the use cases, we’re seeing a much broader demographic of people drawn to the app. We extended that to cover small businesses as well in 2023, so that was a big step forward. And overall we’ve seen, in transaction volumes and growth, new customers, about a 77% increase year on year, and payments, people actually engaging with the app and using it, has increased close to 85%. So it gives us a lot of confidence to continue to invest in everything that we’re doing.

Dexter Cousins
So Revolut, I think it’s the 10-year anniversary this year, is that right?

Matt Baxby
Yeah, that’s right. So it’s hard to believe the company’s as young as it is.

Dexter Cousins
I think you need to put some numbers in context around that, because they’re pretty incredible.

Matt Baxby
I guess the headline is we’ve just pushed through 50 million customers globally.

Dexter Cousins
It was only 40 million two weeks ago, wasn’t it?

Matt Baxby
I know, it’s quite amazing, isn’t it? But operating across more than 30 markets. So I guess the sources of growth have been, on one hand, continued expansion of product features and attracting new customers that way, but also pushing into new markets. Our founders, to their credit, could have easily just consolidated down on core markets in the UK and Europe. We had an incredible business there. But they have gone on towards this real mission of building the world’s first truly global bank, and as a result expanded in a whole bunch of new markets: Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the US itself. So it’s been…

Dexter Cousins
I mean, one of the criticisms that’s been labelled at businesses like Revolut has been, well, they’re not profitable, they don’t generate revenue. That’s not a claim that can be laid at Revolut.

Matt Baxby
No. So at group level we’ve been profitable now for a few years, and very meaningfully in the last published financial year. Even in Australia, we’ve got through to standalone profitability. That was a really important milestone for us in the last 12 months.

Dexter Cousins
It’s psychological, standing on your own two feet.

Matt Baxby
Yeah, organically generating capital to sustain the business. And I think that’s particularly true if you fast forward for us a little bit to becoming a bank in the future: being able to prove that the business model can stand up, it’s resilient, and, as I said, that we’re generating our own capital.

Dexter Cousins
It’s a really interesting point that you make, Matt, because I think one of the things… well, there are a lot of things that I admire about Revolut, but I think the thing that’s really stood out to me has been their approach to Australia, particularly when you see so many others who’ve come and gone internationally, who think, hey, it’s just about putting boots on the ground, and they don’t really appreciate the challenges and the complexity. And to see that long-term commitment to the country, I think there’s very, very few who have had the chops to actually do that and stick by it and see it get to the point that you need to, where you get profitability. And you look at your numbers: you’re doing what in took 20 years to do, right? And without mortgages. So it’s pretty incredible stuff.

Matt Baxby
Yeah, and look, we’ve learned a huge amount. I think it was probably in one set a little in Revolut early on that you could do the desktop analysis out of London, send a launch team down, light the fuse, and everything would go well. And we learned early on the importance of putting a really strong local team on the ground: hire a great CEO, have them develop a strategy that’s oriented around the local market, things like what’s the local consumer nuance, what’s the competitive landscape, what’s the competitive reaction likely to be as you launch. But have them develop that go-to-market strategy, build their great local team, and then go about executing on the product. You really want people waking up in the morning and thinking about how am I going to make the Aussie business great. And I think that’s underpinned some of the success that we’ve seen over the last…

Dexter Cousins
What’s also, I think, really insightful for me, and I’d like to share it with the listeners, is just the evidence of the long-term approach. Having been involved in your hire and knowing what the remit was, and eventually the view of getting a banking licence, setting that expectation day one really then changed fundamentally the type of person that you need to bring in as CEO. Now we’re five years on, and news is there could be an Aussie banking licence on the horizon in the not too distant future. What have you seen around the best approach to go around building a digital bank in Australia? Because the reality is you’ve outlived two competitors, or three competitors, that went and got digital banking licences first and then built the bank.

Matt Baxby
Yeah, what I’d say is, I think that business model of putting a team together, building the tech, raising the capital, applying for the licence, but then only having the opportunity to market test at the point at which the licence is granted, that’s a really hard business model to make work from a standing start. So early on we took the view that we wanted to almost build a beachhead in payments, and a viable business in its own right, and that’s a great jump-off point to becoming a bank in the future. You’ve got the existing customer base, they’re very engaged with the app already. In terms of what we’ve seen around some of the transaction growth, even things like the subscription plans that we offer, I was coming in really BR sceptical as to, is that something that’s going to really land in Australia? A these high value seekers need to be really convinced that there’s value there before they’ll take something like that on. And again, we’ve just seen that part of our business continue to grow, partly because we can prove there is real value there for people. But I think that business model of having an existing business as a jump-off point, and a profitable one, makes a huge difference.

I think the other is being really oriented towards what consumers want. And look, I know I’m in this privileged position of having a pretty awesome product catalogue to call on from the UK and Europe, and being able to learn some of the lessons they had early on. But again, I think having great tech, being able to ship features pretty rapidly… I think we’ve launched more than 20 features over the last couple of years, so really built the proposition out. And as a result you really start to challenge what people would expect from their bank. An example I use a little bit is something we’ve launched in Europe, which is Revolut Stays, which is an accommodation booking service. So an ability for your app to offer a service like that is not something people would typically expect from their bank. And so you’re starting to drive differentiation. It’s not just about where am I going to my salary, and I’m going to offer a mortgage, and I’m going to reprice it over time. It’s a much broader business, and more sustainable as a result.

Dexter Cousins
It’s been really fascinating to see how rapidly technology is developing, and it seems like every day there’s a new buzzword or technology or hype cycle that everybody’s jumping on. And while fintech may seem to have had its moment, I get the sense now that what we’re seeing is a real maturity within the tech space. And look, mate, while we’ve seen the news of DeepSeek, and how five people have done what thousands couldn’t with billions and billions of dollars of investment in the US, I think ultimately the moat for fintech is the level of complexity, particularly around risk, compliance, treasury management and all of those things. Once a business like Revolut has invested the last 10 years in building all of that infrastructure and systems, and investing heavily in risk and compliance and all of those things, I think it’s really hard now for any startup to come and go, hey, we’re going to be the next Revolut.

Matt Baxby
I think I’m still really optimistic about the sector. I think there’s still some big problems to solve, and some of the fundamentals haven’t really changed over the last few years. There’s still a massive concentration in the Big Four. I don’t think they serve Aussie customers as well as they could; they certainly haven’t innovated in terms of product. And so you do need to play to your strengths a little bit there in terms of the agility, having enabling technology that does reduce complexity, being really oriented to what consumers want, and again reducing that complexity, giving them insight into their finances in a different way, and frankly features that help them live their life differently. So I still remain really optimistic about that. I don’t underestimate it, and having lived through the last five years, even with being part of a bigger group, I can see some of those challenges. Access to capital in Australia, it’s a thinnish market. Banking, as you said, has proved to be a pretty tough nut to crack from a standing start. So there’s some headwinds there. But fundamentally I think the real opportunity is the generational shift that’s still happening, which is people much less wedded to the incumbent banks and much more open to solutions that actually align with how they live their lives. So that’s the thing to go after, I think.

Dexter Cousins
I was amazed to find out actually recently that Australia, I think, is the fifth largest in the world in terms of outbound remittance. Have you been able to tap into the heavy immigrant population that we’ve got here in Australia? I remember when I arrived 21 years ago, it was like, I want ANZ Bank, and it’s because that’s all you knew, right? Whereas now I think, wow, the first thing I’d be doing is getting a Revolut account, if I haven’t already got one, and sending money back home, and being able to send money from the UK over to pay my rent and those things.

Matt Baxby
100%. That initial hypothesis around the size of the remittance flows, combined with, because of the market structure in Australia, effectively an oligopoly, Australians being pretty poorly served, that’s just very to ground for Revolut to come in and disrupt that. And that’s what we’ve seen in terms of the flows. I think people are becoming more aware of the hidden costs of those things. So it tends not to be in the transaction fees; it’s a bit off a spread. It’s the difference between the wholesale rate and the rate you’re either buying or selling at, and that’s harder for people to quantify. They don’t necessarily have access to all of it. We’ve tried to be as transparent as possible around that, and I think it’s served us well, alongside making that as seamless as possible. So the fact you can transfer P2P to a network of 50 million customers globally pretty seamlessly, it’s not a case of waiting 14 days for the money to drop, it’s there instantly. And again, that’s, I guess, the virality of the product. It helps a lot in terms of, as we build out the global business, I think that just becomes more and more…

Dexter Cousins
And if the day comes when you do get an Australian banking licence, what does that then mean for the product suite that Revolut will be offering?

Matt Baxby
So I think we really orient ourselves around the importance of the bank licence as enabling those additional services to customers. There’s lots of add-on benefits for the business, but at its core that’s what it’s about. One aspect of that is obviously things like interest-bearing savings, people being able to earn interest when they park their money with us. I think that’s one element. And I think credit’s the other. So if you look at the non-bank sector, that’s much bigger in Australia than it is in lots of other markets, and I think that’s a good thing. But I think over time you see that those guys can struggle, with markets either retreating based on economic conditions. And so a bank licence gives us continuity of the funding source, and that means we can offer a more expansive suite of credit products and know that we can stay in the market, remain competitive, all those types of things. So overall it’s pretty transformational for us. The final leg of that is a bit harder to quantify, and that’s there’s a big trust question attached to being a bank. People know that you’re held to a really high standard, and we think that’s going to help us overall: being held to that standard, people knowing they can trust us, and as a result grow the business overall, serve more customers.

Dexter Cousins
And so Revolut home loans, is that something we might see on the horizon?

Matt Baxby
Well, we’ve launched mortgages in other markets. A bit to think through there. It’s obviously ultra competitive in Australia, and we tend to focus on areas where consumers are really underserved. But it’s a part of the market that’s pretty hard to ignore. It’s big, profitable, so…

Dexter Cousins
And the bit that you mentioned about the Stays piece as well. I think what’s really been fascinating for me is to see the super app in action on an actual nation or an economy. I was in Bali last year and I hadn’t been for about 10 years, and the big difference for me was Grab. All of a sudden you’ve got people who’ve got their own businesses, and it’s jumping on the back of a moped, or it’s food delivery, but the economic freedom that that’s given people. And you look at Revolut as being almost like the next step up from that, right? It’s like, okay, imagine getting a mortgage through Revolut and I say, hey, I think I might stick it on Airbnb. You’ve got your one-stop shop, right?

Matt Baxby
Yeah, I think it’s the definition of enabling technology: making finance accessible and simple and taking the friction out of it. Even things like offering merchant terminals. I think there’s just been very high barriers to entry, extremely expensive. Again, that’s something we’ve launched in other markets, and making that more available to small businesses, so that a freelancer can run a business where they have a terminal if they need it, and can build their customers using all of that. So I think you’re absolutely right, Dexter. I think that new technology, particularly in developing countries but also more established ones, really opens the door to…

Dexter Cousins
Yeah, absolutely. And for you and I, financial freedom meant working for a long time, building up a nest egg and then hopefully one day retiring early. Whereas I think for younger generations, financial freedom means very, very different things to what we maybe, as we were growing up, thought it might mean. And the reality is that in the Western world the average population’s about 45, and if you look at areas like Southeast Asia, Africa, their average age is 25. So you look at the size of these opportunities globally, right, and the movement. I think our idea of financial freedom is probably a rear-view mirror view of it. Which, look, I mean, would explain why you’re putting on 10 million customers from the time that I wrote the show notes to the time of recording the podcast.

Matt Baxby
Yeah, absolutely. As I said, I think there’s this once-in-a-generation shift that’s happened in terms of what people want in terms of support on their finances, and it’s much more around integrating with the way they live their life. A key takeout from COVID, and I think this trend has continued, as an example, being people being much more self-directed about their wealth. They don’t hand off to a fund manager or a broker; they want to do it themselves. They want to know what their net worth is, they want to be able to actively engage in that, they want to access alternative asset classes that they may not have been able to previously. Crypto is an example, but that covers all sorts of things: shares in different markets, things like commodities. So I think making that accessible, and then giving people clarity as to where they’re up to in their financial lives, I think that’s key to the unlock, I guess.

Dexter Cousins
Now, I want to talk a little bit about yourself, Matt. A few things that really distinguish you from other people in my network. First of all, your background, coming from the traditional banking space. When I’ve collected data, I think about 90% of people who make that move from a Big Four bank or a traditional bank into a business like Revolut tend to be gone within the first six months. The other is that startup years, I think it’s commonly appreciated, are probably the equivalent to dog years. And so we’re sitting here and you’re celebrating 35 years at Revolut. So what I really want to dive deep into is, first of all, what are those qualities that put you in the 10% and not the 90%? And then what are the qualities that now are putting you in the 1% of the 1% who have been able to go on the growth journey with the business as well?

Matt Baxby
Great questions, Dexter, and obviously ones of self-reflection. But I guess I was maybe a little bit unique in that, alongside the banking, I’d had 10 years at Virgin. So it was that real injection of entrepreneurialism, orientation towards consumers and what they want. That comes directly from Richard. I had the opportunity to work pretty closely with him when I was at Virgin for all of those years, and so went into banking with that lens attached. And in some ways I think the time in banking grew me up a bit. It was a big team; I was running more than 3,000 people. And then when I stepped into the CFO role, I worked out how to run a balance sheet and everything else that comes with it.

But I think the steepest transition was still the move into Revolut, and that was for a few reasons. It was less about the subject matter and more about the ways of working, and really challenging myself on how I went about leading the team and developing the strategy and everything else. And one part of that is absolutely a need to roll your sleeves up and orient towards action first and foremost. One thing I’d say about banks: they’re fantastic at doing the colourful PowerPoints; what they’re not great at is then converting that to action. What am I doing this quarter that moves me towards my true north, or where I’m trying to get to? I guess I’ve always had a bit of that. I’ve always much preferred being a producer and being in the trench with the team, and so that came a bit more naturally to me.

But there were other things that did have a real steep learning curve to them: embracing the tools that Revolut uses. It’s almost the rails on which the firm runs, and that’s akin to a software developer: very heavy use of Jira and roadmaps to define what are you doing for the next fortnight. We’ve got some incredible internal proprietary technology that we use for everything from performance management all the way through to recruitment and the like, and that’s incredible, but you really do need to embrace that. And something I say to each new joiner is, you’re going to feel like you’re in a washing machine for the first three months. Everyone goes through that. The key is your own persistence and having a curious mind, being willing to self-develop, I guess, work the answers out, and you’ll find three to six months in there is no other way of working, and you can never go back. I’ve always challenged myself to think, if I ever stepped back into a corporate, what would I do? Just to your analogy, I don’t think I’d survive six months. It would just be too different now to what I’ve become familiar with. But they’re probably a few of the key parts.

Dexter Cousins
Another thing that makes you really unique, Matt, is you’ve worked very successfully with two very, very successful entrepreneurs, and that isn’t an easy thing to do. A lot of people would find that too challenging. What is your secret to success, being able to take things on the chin that you’ve got to take? People with big, bold visions who are totally action oriented, and sometimes you can feel a bit like you’re in the slipstream of that. How have you adapted your style, and what are the tips that you could share with other people who really want to grow and experience what it’s like to work with an exceptional entrepreneur, but maybe are a little bit concerned that they might get a little bit offended, or not have the grit that’s required to do that?

Matt Baxby
I think, and I don’t have the perfect formula by any means, but the things I found helped me a lot: one, early on, creating the space to be clear around what our strategy was going to be. And I think in startups and fintech that almost feels like a luxury, to be honest. It’s so much, what am I doing this quarter, let’s get on with it, rather than stand back and think, actually, how do we want this to unfold? What are we going to prioritise early, but what’s important over the long term? And to Nik and Vlad’s credit, they were really patient about that to begin with, in terms of us defining who we were going to go after, what we were going to offer them, and as a result what that would create. So I think that was one part. But that definitely needs to be paired with momentum, and a sense that you’re building confidence in the business you’ve got going, and that’s multifaceted. That’s quality of people, how they’re showing up in their interactions. It’s results on the board, frankly; that’s really important.

Ability. Sh… is going to go wrong; it’s what you do about it. It sounds really trite, but it really does matter. So there’s lots of issues that will come at you; it’s then how you respond as a team. And that links back then to the importance of strategy, being clear on where you’re heading and being able to anchor back to that.

I think the other, and maybe a bit more unique to Revolut, maybe not, is being really fact-based in your decision making: drawing on evidence to demonstrate you’ve thought deeply about it. You’ve got a hypothesis, you think these things prove it out, and this is how you’re going to monitor from here. So I think that’s a real DNA within Revolut: democracy of the best idea, and really fact-based.

Dexter Cousins
I think the thing that really stands out to me about Revolut, and I get asked this question a lot actually, is what is the thing that you see that makes that extra success? And I think it’s just the absolute, almost stoicism, of the founder in their vision and their belief. And it’s a big, bold, ambitious problem that everybody is going to say you’re never going to do, and they are just absolutely resolute. I remember watching a documentary about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, and Jimmy Iovine said the reason why most people don’t get what they want is because they’re not wearing blinkers. You’ve got to be like a racehorse, right, and have those blinkers on. And I think that’s the thing that I’ve noticed: that permeates all the way through. Like you’ve said, with fact-based decision making around every process that you’ve got, the meticulousness of the UX, the meticulousness around product development and feature rollout and all of those things. It’s almost like the CEO and the founder are still in the DNA of everything that comes through Revolut.

Matt Baxby
100%. And again, I think that’s the real benefit of being founder-led, and frankly a private business as well: you can cut through all of that, and the planets revolve around that clarity of vision of what we’re going after, and then translating that to what are we going to focus on next. And even as the complexity is growing, I’ve seen Nik and Vlad stay incredibly hands-on and focused on really what matters in all of that. I think the things that go alongside that: holding the bar really high on talent, not compromising. I think it’s easy early on in a startup… I know in Australia it was like this: you’re really pushing your proposition to have people attracted to it. It’s not that people are just drawn to the brand; you need to demonstrate how you’re different.

Dexter Cousins
And I think, if you remember our first conversation, I was almost talking you out of the job. It wasn’t to dissuade you; it was just to be transparent: look, I don’t want to be replacing it in six months’ time, right? And I think I used the words to you, hey, it’ll probably be 18 months, and it’ll be the greatest 18 months of your life. And it’s amazing to see that it’s gone way beyond that. I think this is what a lot of people miss about hiring for these types of businesses at this stage of business: if you’re transparent and you’re clear and you focus on people who share the vision and have those qualities that you’ve talked about, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be with a business for five years and have the capability to grow along with the business. And I think that’s one of the key learnings that I’ve had from the experience of working with yourself, Matt: hey, look, it doesn’t have to just be 18 months to get you to this point. If you find the right people, they’ll grow as the business grows as well.

Matt Baxby
Yeah, you’re right. I think the expectations being set of what it’s likely to feel like when you land, and the steepness of that transition and everything that goes with it, they’re really important conversations to have early on. I think the second is that there’s an active discussion around the motivators. So what is it that’s drawing you to this? And you probably remember, when we talked about Revolut it was, one, the market opportunity, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have the breakout consumer bank in Australia. Two, an ability to have personal impact: how am I making a difference? Having sat in a bank where you’re a cog in the wheel, flipping that to, sure, I’m the third or fourth person on the ground, but geez, that gives you an opportunity for a big personal impact. And then the final was just wanting to steepen my own growth curve: learning a lot around how technology companies function and how the ways of working are different to what I’d experienced. And they’re all things that keep you super interested and motivated and engaged.

Dexter Cousins
Now, it’s not just yourself who’s been with the business for five years here in Oz, but the exec team as well. What were the qualities that you looked for that have obviously led to having such a successful founding team?

Matt Baxby
So again, that hasn’t changed too much over time. I think one would be that action orientation. So what I go looking for is someone able to aate the track record of outcomes they’ve had in previous roles. So it’s not about size of team, breadth of responsibilities, the committees or the governance forums they sat on; much more around what did you do personally that shifted the dial, that created a difference. I think the other aspects to that are, I go looking for people who like the clarity of knowing what success looks like. So they tend to be pretty oriented, fairly metricated in how they think about things, like the clarity of that, dislike the subjectivity that can sometimes come, again, in corporates. And then the others would be some big transitions in their career, because I think the test, particularly with people who’ve come out of banks and corporates, is never about the subject matter. It’s always about, can they adapt to a different way of working? Can they rewire themselves to not do the job be successful in Revolut from the start? And then the final is a little softer: it’s almost their motivation in wanting to be part of the mission. I think that’s what’s really helped us in Australia, this sense of, we’re doing something pretty special, this is a once-in-a-career opportunity, and I can see the personal impact that I’m having. If they’re the motivators, versus money or large teams or big broad responsibilities, I feel we’re in better territory, and that tends to mean longevity of tenure. They’re more engaged for longer than if they’re motivated by some of those other things.

Dexter Cousins
It’s really interesting, your point about adapting to the environment, because I think that’s actually the number one reason why people don’t last if they make that move. And when I’ve interviewed and done all the research on it, Matt, there are two things that clearly happen. The first is, as you mentioned, you’re in the washing machine for the first three months, right? And that’s stressful. You’re having to unlearn what you’ve learned and learn new skills, and in any walk of life, any person that does that will make a lot of mistakes. And unfortunately, in the environment that they’ve come from, if you make a mistake, you either get punished for it, you don’t get your bonus, you don’t get promoted, or you might get sacked. And so it’s almost like the survival mechanism is, how do I hide this, or how do I blame someone else? And of course, when we’re all under stress and pressure we go into survival mode, and the people who are able to adapt are able to get beyond that fight-or-flight mode of thinking and back into critical thinking, and take a step back and go, okay, I’ve screwed up here, how do I fix this? And I think that’s the number one thing, and you touched on this as well, that helps people make that transition: first of all, be really aware you’re going to make lots of mistakes. Two, not to go in with the belief that mistakes and failure are cool, because they’re not, right? Accountability is cool, and making it happen is cool. And I think that’s the dot that people miss: look, not seeking to fail, but if we do, let’s not worry about it, let’s move forward very quickly and fix things.

Matt Baxby
Again, you’re right, Dexter. I think everything you said resonates with what I experienced when I was sitting in a bank, which is, who’s going to launch the coronial inquiry, and CH starts, and all the rest of it. Of course that drives behaviour, right? Bad news travels slowly. People go looking for someone else to carry the can on things that might have happened, versus an environment where actually it’s a learning experience: what do we take out of that that is going to mean we do better in the future? As you say, taking accountability quickly for it. And in particular, I’m big on bad news travelling as quickly as good news. It’s not a theat for success all of the time. Stuff’s going to happen, and that needs to move pretty quickly so we can do something about it. And of course we’ve had our fair share of those types of things. But that’s a really important cultural setting, and as you say, it takes quite a bit of getting your head around, stepping into an environment like that that might be different to what people, particularly in banks, might be used to.

Dexter Cousins
Right, I’ve got the billion-dollar question for you now, Matt. So you’ve worked with some of the greatest entrepreneurs that we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes. You’ve worked with some great businesses. We talked about the rapid change of technology, and we talked about, hey, what is the opportunity for fintech startups now? If you were going to be backed, at the end of your Revolut days, to go and do something new, what do you think that opportunity would look like, and what would be the type of business that you would want to build?

Matt Baxby
Well, that’s a really big question. It’s going to sound a bit general, but I still think this space in consumer banking is wide open. And I think the tailwind, for me, comes back to people wanting something different from their provider of those services. And in Australia, I think the triumvirate is sort of: great experience, a product that’s integrated with their lifestyle, and fundamentally Aussies are value seekers; they go looking to see that they’re getting a good deal. And I think if you can meet each of those criteria, you’re at a good start. And then all the enablement of that has to be great tech. I see fintechs pull technology solutions off the shelf, and again, I’m in a position of privilege to be able to say this, but pull technology solutions off the shelf and wonder why it doesn’t help differentiation. So I think that’s one: making sure that you’re investing the right amount in that enabling technology. And two, again, it sounds so trite: it’s all down to the talent. It’s the type and quality of people that you draw in, and I reckon that’s like the 90% factor on whether you’re going to be successful or not. Because of course there’ll be challenges. We had COVID thrown at us very early on in Revolut. I don’t think, if I’d been surrounded by a lesser team, we would have navigated that the same way, and I’m just convinced it made us a better business. It diversified us, it accelerated our roadmap in a different way. And if that team hadn’t been there, I think we probably would have struggled. So I don’t think there’s a particular sector or segment or product idea or anything like that. I think it’s more getting the fundamentals right of the offering, and being really dis abundant in how you build towards that.

Dexter Cousins
We’re coming to a wrap-up. Before we do, what can we expect from Revolut Australia in 2025?

Matt Baxby
So, big year ahead. It’s funny, we crossed the finish line of 2024 with some great milestones for us in that one, but it’s almost like a fresh start, isn’t it? It’s not the finishing line, it’s the starting gun going off again.

Dexter Cousins
Somebody once put it to me very eloquently: it’s like jumping out of a plane without a parachute every day.

Matt Baxby
A bit like that.

Dexter Cousins
And you’re flying the plane and trying to build it at the same time.

Matt Baxby
Exactly. And the wings are missing, maybe. But I think for us, continue the A-grade team build-out. We’re still hiring at pace. A big focus around being bank ready, bank grade, in terms of the team and the roles we’ve got live. So I think that’s a big one, continuing that work. Our product roadmap, I think the features we have coming in the pipeline are probably going to be the most expansive for us in the five years that I’ve been here. So I think people can expect the Australian version of the app to get much closer to what’s offered in the UK and Europe in terms of features. So that will include everything like embedded travel insurance, a richer loyalty program, but also some of the things I’d regard as hygiene. So getting our domestic payment integrations complete: we’ve just got our own BSB, and we’ll fully integrate our own solution on NPP, PayID, BPAY, PayTo. That’s all coming. So a really big push there. And then, as I said, I think there’s a lot of focus around bank readiness. So I cannot put a timetable on that, but that would obviously be a really important strategic unlock for us as well.

Dexter Cousins
Well, Matt, we get some awesome talent listening to this podcast. If they’re interested in careers at Revolut, where’s the best place for them to go?

Matt Baxby
So jump on the website, revolut.com/careers, and we’ve got a pretty active LinkedIn profile as well. So either of those two options will give everyone a good sense of roles happening, and reach out to our recruiting team.

Dexter Cousins
And I don’t think there’ll be anybody who’s listening to this who hasn’t already downloaded Revolut, but if they haven’t, where can they find the app?

Matt Baxby
App Store, Google Play. You download the app, or jump on our website and all the links are there as well: revolut.com.

Dexter Cousins
Well, Matt, amazing to catch up again. Thanks for all your insights, congrats on the five years, good luck with navigating 2025, and I can’t wait to get you back on the show when the licence is here and you can make some big announcements about what’s next.

Matt Baxby
Look forward to it, Dexter. Thanks again for having me.

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