The chief executive of Britain’s most valuable fintech start-up has taken a swipe at the UK stock market saying it is “not rational” to float in London.
Nikolay Storonsky, who runs online bank Revolut, said the UK “can’t compete” and was “much worse” than American stock markets because of stamp duty taxes on buying shares.
“The problem with the UK – if you think about the UK versus the US – is the US is much more liquid [and] trading in the US is free.
“If you look at trading in the UK, you always pay a stamp duty tax which is 0.5pc. I just don’t understand how the product which is being provided by the UK can compete with the product provided by the US,” Mr Storonsky told the 20VC podcast.
“The UK is less liquid so it’s much worse compared to the US plus it’s much more expensive because you pay stamp duty – it’s just not rational.”
Stamp duty charges, which are paid when shares are bought and sold, have been blamed for making the London stock market less competitive.
On Monday evening, the Lord Mayor of London, the head of the City of London Corporation, hit out at stamp duty taxes.
Alastair King said: “We should look again at stamp duty imposed on trading in UK shares. It cannot be logically correct that, as it stands, we do not pay tax on purchases of international vehicles such as Tesla, but we are taxed for investing in a British brand like Aston Martin.”
A string of technology companies have left the London Stock Exchange in recent months, including Darktrace, bought by the US private equity firm Thoma Bravo, and Just Eat, which last week said it would cancel its secondary listing in the UK.
When asked if that meant Revolut would list in the US should it go public, Mr Storonsky said: “I consider myself a rational person, unless I have a better product from the UK then yeah.
“One is far ahead compared to the other.”
Revolut has been valued at $45bn (£35.5bn) in secondary share trading that has allowed employees and early investors to sell their stakes.
Mr Storonsky said he was already running the financial technology app “like it’s a public company” and that floating would allow its venture capital investors to cash out.
He has previously attacked “extreme bureaucracy” in the UK amid the company’s long route to a banking licence.
The company finally received provisional authorisation for lending in July after a three and a half year wait.
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