Ex-Goldman chief Sherwood joins UK fintech ‎unicorn Revolut

Michael Sherwood, the former boss of Goldman Sachs in Europe‎ and one of the City's most prominent bank executives, is joining the board of Revolut, the fast-growing British fintech unicorn.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Sherwood, who left the Wall Street giant in 2017 after three decades, is returning to the banking industry with a non-executive directorship at Revolut.

Sources said this weekend that Mr Sherwood's appointment would be announced next week.

Revolut, which is run by Nikolay Storonsky, a 35-year-old former investment banker‎, is also close to naming a prominent chairman as it seeks to strengthen its relationship with key regulators, insiders added.

The payments and banking app is understood to be close to securing approval from City watchdogs for the new directors.

The appointment of Mr Sherwood to its board highlights the sc‎ale of Revolut's ambitions.

From a standing start less than five years ago, the company now has close to 6m customers across Europe, roughly half of whom are in the UK.

Revolut says it is opening 12,000 accounts every day - equating to 4m each year - and has received financial backing from some of the biggest names in the venture capital industry, including Balderton Capital, DST Global and Index Ventures.

A further funding round, which is expected to seek in the region of $500m, is likely in the coming months amid a frenzied race by banking start-ups to raise capital for expansion and regulatory purposes.

Monzo, which is chaired by the former Northern Rock chief Gary Hoffman, announced a £113m fundraising last month which valued it at more than £2bn.

Zopa, another digital player, is also in talks with investors, while Atom Bank is similarly engaged in discussions about providing new money.

Mr Storonsky's ambitions appear to be limitless, however.

He recently told Financial News that he would like Revolut to be worth between $20bn and $40bn before it contemplates a stock market listing, which is likely to be several years away.

The arrival of Mr Sherwood‎, who is thought to have invested privately in Revolut at an early stage of its existence, brings into its boardroom a man widely seen as one of the City's most powerful executives during his 30-year Goldman career.

His departure as co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International came months after the investment bank became embroiled in controversy over the role it had played during Sir Philip Green's sale of BHS to the former bankrupt Dominic Chappell.

The department store chain collapsed little more than a year after Sir Philip sold it, and a subsequent parliamentary inquiry quizzed Mr Sherwood and colleagues about the 'informal and unpaid' advice they had provided.

Mr Sherwood and Sir Philip had had a long-standing and fruitful professional relationship, but the Goldman banker denied when he resigned that the circumstances of BHS's sale had played any part in his decision to leave the bank.

Since his departure, part of Mr Sherwood's deferred pay is reported to have been withheld by Goldman pending the outcome of investigations into an alleged bribery and money-laundering scheme involving 1MDB, a Malaysian‎ state investment fund.

Mr Sherwood, known during his Goldman career as 'Woody', has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

His arrival at Revolut will bolster a board lacking big City names, but which has faced searching questions about the quality of its compliance functions.

The firm became mired in a row about claims made in a newspaper article that it had "switched off" an automated system designed to prevent its money transfer system being used to violate international sanctions.

Revolut insisted that the new system was simply being tested alongside existing controls.

The company has also faced questions about alleged links ‎to the Kremlin, which it has vehemently denied.

In March, it appointed a former Deloitte partner, Caroline Britton, to chair its board audit committee.

It has also just hired Richard Davies, a senior TSB executive, as chief operating officer.

Next week's appointments are expected to be presented as an important step in Revolut's development amid growing scrutiny from regulators.

The Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority recently challenged faster-growing firms under its auspices to adopt more rigorous stress-testing and evidence of greater challenge by board members.

As well as the UK, Revolut operates in Australia and across Europe, with launches in Canada, the US, Japan and Singapore expected shortly.

Sources said its next round of funding was likely to value it at more than $5bn, potentially making it Britain's most valuable recent tech start-up.

Revolut and Mr Sherwood both declined to comment on Saturday.