Revolut employees say 50+ staff in Poland and Portugal were given the choice of being terminated or receiving severance if they left by “mutual agreement”
Emiliano Mellino / WIRED UK : Tweets: @mellino , @sharonodea , @jtemperton , @chris_skinner , and @martinsfp Tweets: Emiliano Mellino / @mellino : We tend to forget that the bulk of the jobs in the new ebanks aren't done by tech guys in glitzy London offices, but by support & compliance staff dotted around Europe. Here's how Revolut got rid of dozens of them during the pandemic. Me for @WiredUK https://www.wired.co.uk/... Sharon O'Dea / @sharonodea : Revolut staff told “quit your jobs or be fired” while others allege they were pressured to accept a voluntary salary sacrifice scheme for fear of losing jobs. https://www.wired.co.uk/... Not a good day for the challengers. James Temperton / @jtemperton : Revolut staff claim they're being forced out to cut costs. Why? As one Revolut staffer told @Mellino “They don't care about people.” https://www.wired.co.uk/... Chris Skinner / @chris_skinner : Revolut staff told to quit jobs or be fired @WIRED https://www.wired.co.uk/... Martin Sfp Bryant / @martinsfp : It's a grim time for neobanks and their staff https://www.wired.co.uk/...
Context & Ripple Effects
WIRED's reporting pulls back the curtain on where the headcount actually sits at Europe's app-only banks: not in glitzy London product teams, but in support and compliance roles dotted around Poland, Portugal, and elsewhere. The timing lands on top of an already checkered governance record — the company's CFO Peter O'Higgins resigned amid money-laundering allegations and dodgy-hiring claims just over a year earlier.
Why it matters beyond HR optics: Revolut has been chasing a UK banking licence ever since, and the regulatory scrutiny that came with it eventually forced ownership changes so severe that top shareholder SoftBank demanded compensation. How the company treats rank-and-file staff is now part of the same credibility file regulators read.
First-order effects
- More than 50 support and compliance staff in Poland and Portugal face a binary choice — resign by 'mutual agreement' with severance, or be terminated — letting Revolut shed pandemic-era costs without formally conducting layoffs.
- Employees who decline the deal lose severance entirely, concentrating the pressure on the lowest-paid, most geographically dispersed tier of the workforce rather than London engineering roles.
Second-order effects
- The quit-or-be-fired framing adds to a governance track record — the earlier CFO exit and laundering allegations — that raises the bar for UK regulators weighing Revolut's licence application and its push to simplify ownership for investors like SoftBank.
- Rival European neobanks competing for the same scarce multilingual support and compliance talent now face candidates who price in reputational risk when comparing offers against traditional banks.
Third-order effects
- If 'mutual agreement' exits become the template, app-only banks will have structurally shifted layoff risk onto distributed back-office staff while keeping headcount reductions off formal redundancy books — a practice likely to attract labour-law scrutiny in EU jurisdictions.
- For licensing-bound fintechs, workforce treatment stops being a PR matter and becomes part of the regulatory file: conduct history and licence decisions converge, as Revolut's own path from staffing scandals to regulator-mandated restructuring suggests.
The trend: App-only banks are discovering that the cheap, distributed support-and-compliance workforces behind their growth carry regulatory and reputational costs that surface exactly when they need banking licences.