Yahoo Finance Revolut compliance boss quits amid restructuring
Revolut’s compliance chief has quit following a restructuring of the digital lender’s risk division.
Harry Gill, Revolut’s global head of regulatory compliance and a member of its executive leadership team, resigned after the company’s chief executive Nikolay Storonsky overhauled the department, according to sources.
The resignation follows a string of senior departures at Revolut in recent months, including its head of operational risk and head of UK compliance.
The overhaul of Revolut’s risk and compliance department, known as its “second line of defence”, has meant that employees have been moved to other parts of the business as opposed to the bank reducing overall headcount, The Sunday Telegraph understands.
However, Mr Gill’s resignation came as a surprise as he was recently made an inaugural member of Revolut’s exclusive “global partnership”, which was created to “lay the foundation for senior leaders to propel the business forward in the years to come”.
The compliance chief was one of just 17 employees to be made partner last July. Revolut has said that election to its partnership is “extremely difficult”, adding: “Our partners are a small group of highly-talented colleagues, elected based on their contribution to the entire organisation and ongoing commitment to our core values.”
It also comes as challenger banks face increasing regulatory pressure to tighten controls around financial crime and money laundering.
Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) accused digital upstarts of cutting corners in combating money laundering so customers can quickly set up accounts following a review.
While Revolut was not involved in that particular review as it is licensed in the UK as a so-called “e-money issuer”, the bank has been challenged in the past over its controls.
In 2019, it faced questions from the FCA after it emerged that the lender “erroneous[ly]” switched off an automated system for flagging potential money laundering for several months the previous year.
The seven-year-old digital bank is now valued at $33bn (£26bn) following its latest funding round last summer.
Mr Storonsky, a 37-year-old former Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse employee who founded the business in London in 2015, has a $7.9bn paper fortune following the fundraising.
Ukrainian Vladyslav Yatsenko, the company’s other co-founder and the head of its engineering team, previously worked at UBS, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.
Mr Storonsky, who was born in Russia, has condemned Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
In March he said: "Even though I came from Russia and I’m now a British citizen, by descent I am also Ukrainian. My father is Ukrainian. I have family and friends throughout Ukraine - people who I care about deeply, and about whom I am enormously concerned.
"So, for me, as for so many, the idea of a war between Russia and Ukraine is not just horrifying, it is almost impossible to believe. As recently as last week, I was still convinced that a diplomatic solution would be reached, and it was with complete disbelief and sadness that I looked on at the violence of this past week."
A spokesman for Revolut said: “We have not cut jobs in risk and compliance. On the contrary, we have a robust risk and compliance team of over 250 people, our legal team is over 100 people, and we are actively hiring in both these teams.”
Mr Gill was contacted for comment.
