Revolut's Storonsky switches residency from UK to UAE

Revolut's billionaire co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky has changed his residency from the UK to the United Arab Emirates.

  0 3 comments

Revolut's Storonsky switches residency from UK to UAE

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

Storonsky was born in Russia but he listed his residence as England, where he was a British citizen, until last October. Now, filings at Companies House show this has changed to the UAE, although his citizen status is not provided.

Storonsky co-founded Revolut in 2015, building it into a fintech behemoth with 65 million users and a $75 billion valuation at its most recent fundraising round. Storonsky is the company's largest shareholder, with a stake worth around $8 billion, according to Forbes.

Despite its leader's move, Revolut recently pledged to invest £3 billion in the UK, creating 1000 new high-skilled jobs over the next five years.

However, the company has not always had a smooth relationship with its home market. Last year, it finally secured a UK banking license after a three year wait but it is still stuck in a "mobilisation" period.

Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that UK chancellor Rachel Reeves had clashed with Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey over efforts to accelerate Revolut's authorisation as a fully-licenced bank, with Reeves eager to see the fintech get the greenlight as soon as possible.

Storonsky is not the first fintech billionaire to leave the UK this year: Checkout.com boss Guillaume Pousaz switched his country of residence from the UK to tax haven Monaco.

Other super-rich residents have also left in the wake of changes to the UK's non-dom regime and increased taxes on capital gains, which were introduced by Reeves as part of last year’s Budget.

Sponsored [Webinar] How the Financial Industry is Smarter with AI, but Safer with Identity

Related Company

Comments: (3)

A Finextra member 

Not a massive leap to presume this *might* be motivated by KSA's novel approach to personal taxes, which can be summarized as almost zero income, capital gains or inheritance taxes. 

This is tragic.

Step one: Reeves and Starmer crush the ambition of UK-based founders and entrepreneurs who might help to fix the UK's growth/employment/productivity problems.

Step two: Reeves and Starmer now need to suck it up and grovel to the same entrepreneurs, begging for IPOs in the UK to keep the LSE and City relevant.

John P Stathoulis

John P Stathoulis Retired at Retired

To adapt the last paragraph to the State-Capture-Gupta-Gate-cases in South Africa:

'Other super-rich residents have also left [South Africa for the UAE] in the wake of [belated prosecution attempts] and the safe-haven seemingly provided by the UAE.

To be clear, I'm am not suggesting Mr Storonsky is tainted in any way. But I am suggesting that the UAE is not just a welcome new home for UK non-doms. Mr Storonsky may have interesting neighbours.

A Finextra member 

Good - the more people who move the UAE the better. It will continue to push prices up for locals and force them to live miles from their offices - then one day they will wake up and realise they have just become Monaco but with more bling and more undesirables from Essex and Moscow. 

On another note, people are fleeing the UK before everyone's favourite victim from accounts gets her big pants on and taxes everyone's 20/30 years of hard work to hell. And all because you wanted Rayner over Rishi. 

I suggest you all read the great kleptomania by Tim Burns 

[Webinar] Modernising for what’s next: Data-led Innovation in Financial ServicesFinextra Promoted[Webinar] Modernising for what’s next: Data-led Innovation in Financial Services