Digital banking giant Revolut is launching phone plans for travelers in the UK
Revolut is launching a travel eSIM plan in the U.K., in a rare move for a financial services firm.
Revolut
British financial technology company Revolut is launching phone plans in the U.K., the company has told CNBC exclusively, making it the first financial services firm in the country to offer telecom plans — and among the first globally.
The digital banking and payments unicorn said it will start offering eSIMs — SIM cards that can be stored virtually rather than in physical form in the device — this week. The plans will begin rolling out for users in the coming days.
Customers on Revolut’s basic app experience without any subscription can get a standard eSIM plan that allows them to access their Revolut app so that they can top up their phone as and when needed. For instance, if a Revolut user arrives at an airport and runs out of data on their current SIM provider, they can still access features on their Revolut app free of charge and top up their data as usual.
Revolut customers on the company’s £55 ($69.47) a month, premium Ultra package will get 3GB of data to use globally, with a rolling refresh every month. That means that they will not have to worry about unexpected roaming charges when entering another country.
The cost of using mobile data overseas has increased for Brits in recent years. Several mobile carriers, including BT, Vodafone and Three, have reintroduced roaming charges since the U.K. left the European Union. Brits were previously able to travel across the EU without incurring roaming fees. Meanwhile, most mobile carriers don’t include free data in non-EU countries as part of their standard plans.
Revolut users without an Ultra subscription can get an introductory offer of 100MB of free data if they apply before May 1. The offer is valid for seven days, after which they’ll have to upgrade to Ultra if they want to keep using the eSIM.
Revolut has partnered with U.K. mobile network operator 1Global, formerly known as Truphone, to launch its eSIM.
Tara Massoudi, general manager of premium products at Revolut, said the decision for Revolut to launch eSIMs was to turn the company into more of an all-encompassing “super app” with services spanning bank accounts, currency exchange, insurance, travel bookings and airport lounge passes.
“Our ambition is very much to be the financial super app,” Massoudi told CNBC. “This is really in that direction.”
“Travel is a huge value prop that we’ve always had, and it’s still remained super important for our users,” Massoudi added. “So it’s important that we continue to innovate in that space.”
Launching phone plans is a rare step from a financial services firm. Plenty of challenger banks have bundled new services into their apps to give consumers more of a reason to use them over alternatives. The aim is to pull in a stickier customer base long term.
That’s pretty key in Revolut’s case. The company, which notched a $33 billion valuation in 2022, has been trying to get more of a loyal user base and grow its line of paid subscriptions to diversify revenue.
For that, it needs customers who use it as more of a permanent banking provider for all their financial needs, rather than just an optional low-fee travel account for when they go abroad.
Hermann Frank, CEO of tech startup Gigs, which helps businesses set up and sell their own branded eSIM phone and data plans, said Revolut’s move could prove lucrative for the firm in the long term.
“This move presents an easy avenue for Revolut to unlock a lucrative new revenue stream and could play a vital part in the company’s long-term profitability,” Frank told CNBC via email.
“By enriching their offering with branded phone plans, neobanks like Revolut can fuse two essential services in one single app, easing the user experience and further compounding stickiness.”
Retail spending on travel connectivity services, including roaming packages and travel SIMs, is expected to rise to over $30 billion by 2028, according to roaming and connectivity market intelligence and consulting firm Kaleido Intelligence.
“We foresee many other banks launching phone plans and travel offers in the coming 18 months,” Frank added.
Revolut isn’t the first fintech ever to launch an eSIM offering. Indian credit card startup Zolve, which helps immigrants set up banking before arriving in the U.S., started offering phone plans attached to physical SIMs and eSIMs in August.
Technology
Waymo will update driverless fleet after San Francisco blackout to improve navigation during outages
A Waymo car is halted on the road amid a power outage in San Francisco, California, U.S., December 20, 2025, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video.d
Reuters
Three days after a blackout in San Francisco caused Waymo to pause its driverless car service, the Alphabet-owned company said it’s updating its fleet so its vehicles are better prepared to respond during future outages.
“We’ve always focused on developing the Waymo Driver for the world as it is, including when infrastructure fails,” the company said in a blog post late Tuesday.
Power outages began early afternoon on Saturday in San Francisco and peaked roughly two hours later, affecting about 130,000 customers, according to Pacific Gas and Electric. As of Sunday morning, about 21,000 customers remained without power. PG&E said a fire at a substation resulted in “significant and extensive” damage.
With stoplights and traffic signals not functioning, the city was hit with widespread gridlock. Videos shared on social media appeared to show multiple Waymo vehicles stalled in traffic in various neighborhoods.
“We directed our fleet to pull over and park appropriately so we could return vehicles to our depots in waves,” Waymo said in Tuesday’s blog post. “This ensured we did not further add to the congestion or obstruct emergency vehicles during the peak of the recovery effort.”
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said in an update on X Saturday evening that police officers, fire crews, parking control officers and city ambassadors were deployed across affected neighborhoods.
Waymo said that it’s analyzing the event, and is taking three “immediate steps.”
The first involves “fleet-wide updates” to give vehicles “more context about regional outages,” so cars can take more decisive actions at intersections. The company said it’s also improving its “emergency response protocols,” and is coordinating with Mayor Lurie’s team in San Francisco to better collaborate in emergency preparedness. Finally, Waymo said it’s updating its first responder training “as we discover learnings from this and other widespread events.”
In addition to the Bay Area, Waymo currently serves paid rides to the public in and around Austin, Texas, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The company recently crossed an estimated 450,000 weekly paid rides, and said in December it had served 14 million trips in 2025, putting it on pace to end the year at more than 20 million trips total since launching in 2020.
“Backed by 100M+ miles of fully autonomous driving experience and a record of improving road safety, we are undaunted by the opportunity to challenge the status quo of our roads, and we’re proud to continue serving San Franciscan residents and visitors,” the company said in Tuesday’s blog.
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.
WATCH: Waymo service resumes after errors cause issues in San Francisco
Direxion signage at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. The holiday-shortened week started with gains in stocks amid a broad advance that saw a continuation of the bullish momentum on Wall Street.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Motive, a company with software for managing corporate trucks and drivers, on Tuesday filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MTVE.”
The paperwork puts Motive among a fast-growing group of tech companies looking to go public in 2026. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX have all reportedly considered making their shares widely available for trading next year.
Motive is smaller, reporting a $62.7 million net loss on $115.8 million in revenue in the third quarter. The loss widened from $41.3 million in the same quarter of 2024, while revenue grew about 23% year over year. The company had almost 100,000 clients at the end of September.
Ryan Johns, Obaid Khan and Shoaib Makani started Motive in 2013, originally under the name Keep Truckin. Makani, the CEO, is Khan’s brother-in-law.
Investors include Alphabet’s GV, Base10 Partners, Greenoaks, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Scale Venture Partners.
Motive’s AI Dashcam device for detecting unsafe driving “has prevented 170,000 collisions and saved 1,500 lives on our roads,” Makani wrote in a letter to investors. Most revenue comes from subscriptions, although Motive does sell replacement hardware and professional services.
The San Francisco company changed its name to Motive in 2022, and as of Sept. 30, it employed 4,508 people. Motive employs 400 full-time data annotators who apply labels that are meant to enhance artificial intelligence models.
Motive has ongoing patent-infringement litigation with competitor Samsara, which went public in 2021 and today has a $22 billion market capitalization.
WATCH: AI IPO boom next year? The changing 2026 IPO landscape
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