Revolut CEO may see step forward into social media as fintech launches payments chat feature: ‘You never know’
As Elon Musk looks to move Twitter’s business more strongly into subscriptions and payments, European fintech revolutionaries could see a further push into social media down the road.
The UK-based payments and financial services unicorn – which has long espoused ambitions to become a “super app” for all things money and offers a wide range of products and services from payments to loans to Airbnb-style home rentals – launched a new instant chat feature on its app on Wednesday for UK and EU customers – putting it close to China-based titans like WeChat. But in the long term, it is possible that Revolut may not stop at just a chat function for users to talk about money.
“It’s much easier to go from payments to social because there’s no regulation compared to from social to payments,” said Revolut co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky Fortune on the sidelines of the technology conference Web Summit in Lisbon. “We noticed that people started using a lot of stickers [and] emojis, but the next logical step would be to let them chat while paying. So what we’ve done is we decided to release it in more countries sooner and the engagement is amazing, it’s like people are chatting more now than sending money, Storonsky said.
When asked if Revolut would stop with just a chat function, or if the startup had long-term ambitions to break more into social media with things like a news feed, Storonsky was coy, but didn’t rule it out: “A news feed ? Yes, it’s a little too far from what we do, but you never know.”
Revolut’s move comes as the fintech, which was last valued at $33 billion in 2021 and has over 20 million users, has continued to push forward with different products and into new markets to become an all-encompassing super app, a one-stop shop for people money needs – including things like foreign exchange services and crypto investing.
But on the flip side, speculation has been swirling about whether popular social media app Twitter could move further into payments after Tesla CEO Musk, a PayPal Mafia alum, officially bought the firm in October. Musk has reportedly predicted that Twitter will collect $1.3 billion in payment revenue by 2028, according to an investor presentation obtained by New York Times.
So far, CEO Storonsky has singled out companies like CashApp in the US and Nubank in Brazil as Revolut’s competitors — not social media firms like Musk’s Twitter.
But whether Revolut will further increase social services? In the words of CEO Storonsky, you never know.
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