Neobanks in the Digital Economy: Challenges and Prospects (Економіка та суспільство)

Summary

• Revolut's 2025 annual report showed revenue up 46% to £4.5 billion.p.4
• Revolut's profit before tax grew 57% to £1.7 billion in 2025.p.4
• Revolut's retail customer base grew 30% to 68.3 million.p.4
• N26 ended 2025 with a net profit for the first time, with revenue up 13% to €501.6 million and active customers up 16% to 5.6 million.p.4
• Financial monitoring is the most sensitive area for neobanks because the speed and scale of operations make suspicious schemes harder to detect.p.5
• Further neobank growth is expected to bring market consolidation around large technology-driven players.p.6

Key insights

1. Neobanks build their service around a mobile app and automated operations rather than branches, raising questions on remote customer due diligence and AML.p.2
2. Revolut's 2025 revenue rose 46% to £4.5 billion and its profit before tax rose 57% to £1.7 billion.p.4
3. N26 reported its first net profit in 2025, with revenue up 13% to €501.6 million.p.4
4. Fully remote customer identification is where technological advantage meets the main regulatory challenge.p.4
5. Scaling a digital service raises the load on financial monitoring, internal control and fraud detection.p.4
6. Digitalisation gives banks more tools to analyse large data sets, but the speed and mass of operations complicate detection of suspicious activity.p.5
7. In Ukraine, martial law raised the importance of remote financial services, making continuous account access an element of financial resilience.p.5
8. Ukrainian neobanking, led by Monobank, developed as a component of the country's infrastructure resilience.p.6