Revolut’s finance chief quits after warning

Independent auditor said flaws in fintech’s accounts meant 2021 revenues ‘may be materially overstated’

‘With the pace of growth and the visibility we have as a business, I’m not surprised it’s been called out’

‘I think we effectively outgrew the IT systems relating to accounting’

REVOLUT’S finance chief has quit the fintech giant weeks after its independent auditor issued a critical notice about its accounts.

Mikko Salovaara, who took on the role two years ago, is leaving for “personal reasons” as the finance app’s long wait for a UK banking licence continues.

It comes just weeks after auditors at BDO warned that the company’s revenues for 2021 “may be materially misstated” owing to flaws in Revolut’s internal systems.

BDO said it was unable to satisfy itself of the “completeness and occurrence” of revenues within three of Revolut’s business divisions.

The issue covered revenue totalling £477m, which amounted to threequarters of the group’s total income for the year.

At the time of the publication of its accounts in March, Mr Salovaara sought to downplay the warning as a “technical point”.

He said: “We effectively outgrew the IT systems related to accounting.

“I don’t think it’s particularly unusual for a growing company to take some time to put that in place, but with the pace of growth and the visibility we have as a business, I’m not surprised it’s been called out. The specific issues that [BDO] found in terms of our IT systems were remediated by the end of the third quarter of 2021…I think we’re basically there and we don’t expect any continued audit delays.”

Following BDO’S warning on Revolut’s 2021 accounts, the company issued a public statement and hired lawyers to insist that the accounting firm’s critical opinion represented a clean bill of health.

However, Revolut’s board was said to be frustrated with the company’s response, with some board members believing that the statement was an “overreaction” and showed a lack of understanding of what BDO’S opinion meant, the Financial Times reported.

Revolut is also still awaiting a decision from the Bank of England and the City watchdog on its UK banking licence application, which it applied for nearly two and half years ago.

Mr Salovaara said on March 1 the licence was coming “any day now”.

A source close to the company said Mr Salovaara’s departure was unrelated to BDO’S qualified opinion of its longdelayed 2021 accounts or its banking licence application.

His decision to leave marks the latest high-profile departure at Revolut, which lost several of its most senior executives in its UK banking team last year.

James Radford, Revolut’s UK chief executive, also left the company in recent weeks.

Mr Salovaara, a Yale-graduate who worked in the investment industry before joining Revolut, said: “I am grateful for the opportunity to serve as Group CFO at Revolut and remain confident in the firm’s future success.”

Nikolay Storonsky, Revolut’s chief executive, said: “I thank Mikko for his contribution and wish him well on his next steps.”

Last week, Mr Storonsky launched a blistering attack on what he dubbed the UK’S “extreme bureaucracy”, high taxes and red tape.

He accused regulators of slowing down the company’s application for a banking licence and said he would never choose the UK as a place to list the company.

London-headquartered Revolut, which offers a prepaid card tied to an app and foreign exchange services, claims to have 25m customers around the world.