The opportunity also comes with a warning. Since 2019, Australia has seen several neobank entrants shut down, sell, or surrender licences, including Volt, 86 400, Xinja, and more recently In1Bank. Their struggles reflected weak unit economics, high customer acquisition costs, funding constraints, and the difficulty of scaling lending in a concentrated banking market.

Revolut enters with a different starting position. Its advantage is not just brand recognition, but capital, global infrastructure, and a product stack that begins with everyday money management for SMEs before expanding into cards, expense controls, and merchant acquiring.

The Australian playbook is therefore less about becoming another neobank and more about building a broader SME financial platform. In a market where previous challengers struggled to scale standalone banking models, Revolut’s test is whether a multi-product, infrastructure-backed approach can create stronger economics.