Revolut, a Swiss fintech co-founded by an ex-Credit Suisse banker, has already earned itself a reputation as a threat to the established banking world. What's next?

Nikolay Storonsky isn’t known for holding back or undue modesty. The former Credit Suisse investment banker and CEO of Revolut has just issued his next warning to an industry which in many ways stands for a lot of things that Switzerland is known for: «To put it bluntly, we are going to cause the same disruption in investments as we have done in banking,» he said in an interview with the «Financial Times» (behind paywall).

Storonsky plans to provide an online equity trading platform without charging any commissions. The principle is the same as he introduced for payment services, enabling his users to pay and transmit in more than 100 currencies free of charge.

Revolut has attracted two millions customers for its offering and now aims to make available an online-trading platform to those users as well.

Pain Points Are Clear

«Brokers are charging people as much as 5 pounds per trade and the user interfaces are typically clunky, slow and confusing for consumers,» he said. «The pain points are clear for us and the room for improvement is massive.»

Wealth managers are well advised not to take this for a bluff only. Since being founded in 2015, Revolut has become one of the rare fintech unicorns with a valuation of $1.7 billion. The company currently is undergoing the application procedure to get a banking license in Lithuania. It also has cryptocurrencies in its service portfolio. In Switzerland, Revolut has tens of thousands of clients.