Colombia Grants Revolut a Bank Licence; Public Launch Due in 2027

Colombia’s newest bank cannot sell you anything yet — and that is precisely why this week’s details matter. With a licence granted on 15 September, Revolut has now put dates and numbers on its Colombian entry: a pilot before year-end, a public opening in the first half of 2027 and 1,000 cash machines over five years. For expats who move money between countries, the remittance pitch is the part to watch.

What Was Announced This Week

Diego Caicedo, who heads Revolut’s Colombian unit, told Bloomberg Línea in an interview published on Monday 21 September that the bank will install 1,000 ATMs over its first five years, starting in the largest cities. He set the sequence he had already sketched to Colombian outlets the previous week: a pilot phase toward the end of 2026, then a progressive public opening during the first half of 2027.

The licence behind the plan is real and recent: the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia, the banking regulator, granted it on Tuesday 15 September 2026. With the licence, Revolut announced a total commitment of COP 400 billion — about US$125 million at the current TRM of around 3,193 — including capital pledged earlier, released gradually. The company says about 200,000 people have joined its Colombian waiting list.

What You Can and Cannot Do Today

The honest summary for readers: you cannot open an account, and no date is guaranteed. Before the pilot, the bank must connect to Colombia’s payment rails, the central bank and the instant-payment system Bre-B, which Caicedo told La República he expects to take two to three months. The first products will be credit, mainly cards, with joint accounts and children’s accounts from age six also planned. Fixed-term deposits, known locally as CDTs, come later.

Two limitations matter specifically for expats. First, multi-currency accounts in 31 currencies depend on a further authorisation, for a representative office, which is still pending; the headline Revolut feature many foreigners know from Europe is therefore not part of the launch package. Second, the launch currency stack is peso-first, so at opening the account competes with Colombian banks on local terms, not on international transfers.

The Remittance Pitch

Remittances are where the expat angle bites. Caicedo told the magazine Cambio that Colombia will receive about US$14 billion in remittances this year and that Colombians pay between 5 and 6 percent on large transfers; his promise is free transfers between Revolut users. Deposits will be insured by Fogafín, the state deposit-guarantee fund — the same protection Colombian banks carry.

For a foreign resident receiving money from abroad today, nothing changes yet: the existing channels, bank wires, Wise, remittance apps, remain the working options, and Revolut’s cheaper-transfer promise is a plan, not a product. If the pilot opens on schedule, the waiting list is the way in.

The Field It Enters

Colombia is nearly fully banked and under-credited — the combination digital lenders look for. The regulator’s 2025 financial-inclusion report found 96.5 percent of adults hold a deposit product, but only 36.6 percent held formal credit. That gap made Nubank’s local arm the market’s reference case: Nu Colombia passed 5 million customers in May 2026 and said last week it will invest about COP 5 trillion (about US$1.57 billion) to 2030. Nequi, the wallet built by Bancolombia, has 29 million users and became a separately licensed finance company on 1 September. Smaller players include Lulo Bank, with more than 600,000 users, and RappiPay, with about 700,000.

The spectrum is worth stating plainly: Colombia’s digital-banking boom has widened access and cut some fees, and it has also produced aggressive credit marketing to first-time borrowers. A new entrant adds competition; it does not change the borrow-side math that consumers still have to do themselves.

What Comes Next

Three milestones, none with a firm date: the payment-rails connection, the pilot group, and the public opening in the first half of 2027. The pending multi-currency authorisation is the one expats should track — it decides whether Revolut Colombia becomes a cross-border tool or a domestic one. For the regional money picture, see our daily guide for Tuesday 22 September.

More: Colombia news in English, every day from The Rio Times. See also our daily guide for Tuesday 22 September.