Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has blocked Chancellor Rachel Reeves from holding a proposed meeting with financial technology giant Revolut, in a move that underscores growing tensions between the Treasury and Britain’s financial regulators.
The meeting, which would have brought together Revolut, the Treasury, and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA)—the Bank of England division responsible for licensing banks—was intended to discuss Revolut’s long-delayed plans to launch full banking operations in the UK. However, it was cancelled at Bailey’s request, over concerns that it could be seen as political interference in the Bank’s independent supervisory role.
The intervention, first reported by the Financial Times, is the latest sign of friction between the new Labour government’s pro-growth agenda and the cautious stance of regulators.
Reeves has made loosening regulatory constraints a central part of her strategy to stimulate the UK economy. In a high-profile speech at the Mansion House earlier this month, she claimed that in many areas, regulation “acts as a boot on the neck of businesses,” and urged regulators to adopt a more enabling approach to encourage investment and innovation.
Bailey has publicly pushed back. Asked about Reeves’s remarks during a session of the Commons Treasury Committee, the governor said: “I don’t use those terms, let me say that,” and warned: “We cannot compromise on basic financial stability.”
A Treasury source downplayed the episode, saying: “Revolut are a really important global bank based in the UK. But that is a process being led by the PRA at a working level.” In an official statement, the Treasury added that “the chancellor and the governor have a strong and productive relationship and the government fully supports the operational independence of the Bank of England.”
Revolut, one of the most prominent names in UK fintech, was founded in 2015 as a foreign exchange startup and has since grown into a wide-ranging digital financial platform offering services from crypto trading to stock brokerage. The London-based company employs over 10,000 staff and reported £1.1 billion in pre-tax profits last year. It was recently valued at $45 billion, making it one of the most valuable private tech companies in the UK.
Despite this success, Revolut’s ambition to secure a UK banking licence has been mired in delays. It applied for authorisation in early 2021, but concerns raised by its auditor BDO over £477 million of its 2021 revenue led to questions from regulators and slowed the process significantly.
Although those issues have since been resolved and Revolut was granted restricted authorisation a year ago, it has still not received full approval to begin banking operations in the UK. In contrast, it already provides banking services in the EU via a licence obtained in Lithuania.
Bailey’s intervention to block the meeting adds to growing scrutiny of how Revolut is being treated by regulators, and whether political pressure is appropriate in a sector where regulatory independence is paramount.
For the Chancellor, the episode highlights the limits of her ability to fast-track innovation through top-down reform, particularly when it comes to a Bank of England increasingly assertive in defending its remit. For Bailey, it reinforces the Bank’s insistence that while fostering innovation is welcome, financial stability cannot be compromised—even in pursuit of growth.
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Andrew Bailey blocks Rachel Reeves’s meeting with Revolut amid concerns over political interference