Revolut Taps Xero For SMB Expense Offering

Challenger bank Revolut is launching a new product for its small business customers.

The U.K. company announced in a blog post on Thursday (Aug. 15) the launch of its Expense Management tool under its Revolut for Business offering. Businesses and freelancers using the paid version of Revolut’s business services are able to access the expense management tool to manage their spending in real time, with the ability for managers to accept or reject expenses made by members of their team.

To launch the solution, Revolut has also announced a partnership with small business cloud accounting company Xero, enabling joint customers to integrate expense data between the two platforms for seamless reconciliation.

Revolut pointed to the company’s existing offering of commercial and virtual card services as an area of opportunity to expand business spend-related services. Adding expense management is an extension of the company’s existing v-card offerings, allowing users to take pictures of purchase receipts to automatically capture spend data.

“By bringing all of the essential parts of expense management together in one place, and giving business owners, managers and accountants the ability to approve or reject expenses easily, we’re continuing to help your business thrive,” Revolut said in its announcement.

Earlier this year, Revolut announced a shift in its market strategy as it worked to expand its market share and global presence. The company has also struggled with regulatory scrutiny and allegations that its CEO Nikolay Storonsky is a “bully,” which Storonsky denied to the Financial Times in April reports.

Revolut developed a compliance team with plans to double its size in the year ahead, and also expressed interest in strengthening its relationship with traditional financial institutions.

The bank first launched Revolut for Business in July with an eye toward freelancers and SMBs after first focusing on the consumer segment.