Revolut said on September 24, 2026 that the Central Bank of Argentina has approved its purchase of Banco Cetelem Argentina S.A. from BNP Paribas Personal Finance. The approval clears the main regulatory hurdle for Revolut Argentina. Once the deal closes, the lender becomes Revolut Bank Argentina S.A.U. and will operate as a regulated bank, though it will not offer public products at first. Neither side disclosed a price, and the deal has not yet closed.

This is a license purchase more than a customer purchase. Cetelem is BNP Paribas’s consumer credit brand, and Revolut gets a banking charter it would otherwise have spent years applying for. Local fintechs already hold strong positions, so every year saved on paperwork matters.

What the Revolut Argentina Approval Covers

The approval from the Banco Central de la República Argentina lets Revolut move to completion. After closing, Agustín Danza becomes CEO of Revolut Bank Argentina, subject to central bank sign-off. Danza has run the Argentine project since March 2025 and previously held senior roles at Nubank and Mercado Pago. The board is chaired by Juan Marotta, a former CEO of HSBC Argentina who also led HSBC in South America.

Revolut says more than 150,000 people have joined the Revolut Argentina waitlist since it announced plans to enter the country. The first phase is about meeting capital, regulatory and operational requirements and settling the product set. Danza called the approval “a major milestone on the path to Revolut’s launch in Argentina,” and the Buenos Aires Times reported that the company is aiming for a public launch in 2027.

The eventual offer covers everyday banking, credit, international spending, wealth and rewards in one app. That is the standard Revolut pitch, and not every part of it will matter equally in Argentina.

Why Revolut Is Buying Instead of Applying

Revolut has used both routes. It holds full banking licenses in the UK, the EEA through Lithuania and France, Australia and Mexico. It secured a license in Colombia on September 15, as FintechBits covered at the time. In the US, it has conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national bank charter, with FDIC and Federal Reserve approvals still to come. On September 16, it applied for a Swiss banking license and committed more than CHF 150 million to Switzerland over five years.

Applying from scratch is slow and uncertain. Buying a licensed entity from a seller that wants out gives Revolut a regulated vehicle, working systems and an existing relationship with the supervisor. BNP Paribas Personal Finance gets a clean exit from a small consumer finance business.

Mexico is the obvious comparison. Revolut launched full banking there on January 27, 2026, and reached 1 million customers about eight months later. That is a fair benchmark for Revolut Argentina in its early years: meaningful scale, and still far from market leadership.

The Market Revolut Argentina Is Entering Is Crowded

Mercado Pago, Ualá and Naranja X already have millions of Argentine users, and the large banks all run their own apps. Mercado Pago is also applying for its own banking license, filed in May 2025, and a central bank director has said both it and Revolut should hold licenses before the end of 2026. Payments infrastructure is busy too. In July 2026, Ant International connected Alipay+ to the national QR network. A waitlist of 150,000 shows brand interest, but it is small next to the incumbents.

So Revolut Argentina needs a reason to exist beyond a nicer app. The most plausible one is foreign currency. Argentines have protected savings in dollars for decades, and multi-currency accounts, cheap FX and international cards are core Revolut strengths. The partial lifting of currency controls in April 2025 made that offer more realistic. A dollar account inside a locally licensed bank, with easy ways to move money in and out, would give Revolut Argentina a real edge over local apps.

Credit Is the Harder Business

Lending is where the risk sits. Cetelem’s background is consumer lending, but Argentina’s interest rate and inflation history make unsecured credit tough for a new entrant. Revolut would also be building local underwriting models largely from scratch. Its Latin American record offers two models. Mexico is a full bank, while in Brazil Revolut holds a direct-credit license and offers a narrower set of services.

The likelier path is for Revolut Argentina to lead with accounts, cards and FX, and add credit carefully once it has transaction data on its own customers. That sequence would match how Revolut has usually expanded: win the everyday account first, then sell more products into it.

Danza has framed the Argentine strategy as a full offer across savings, payments, credit, investments and insurance. Whether credit arrives early or late will say a lot about how much risk Revolut is willing to take in a volatile market.

What to Watch

Revolut is running many license projects at once, including Argentina, Colombia, Switzerland, the US and Peru, on top of more than 80 million customers worldwide. That breadth is a deliberate choice, and it carries operational risk. Each license brings its own capital requirements and local management, and a compliance problem with one supervisor tends to prompt questions from others.

The Revolut Argentina approval is a sensible, low-drama step, and launch will be the harder test. Owning a license is necessary. Winning deposits from Argentines who already use Mercado Pago and a local bank is a much bigger problem.

The next marker is completion of the deal and the formal name change to Revolut Bank Argentina S.A.U. After that, watch the first product Revolut Argentina offers the waitlist. If it leads with a dollar account and an international card, the strategy targets savers and travelers. If it leads with credit, Revolut is taking on far more risk.

FintechBits covers payments, banking and fintech developments for readers in the US and UK. This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Views expressed are those of the FintechBits editorial team.