They have a European banking licence, but from what I understand, they operate as an "electronic money institution" [1][2] in the UK.

[1] https://blog.revolut.com/how-emoney-companies-are-growing-up...

[2] https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/electronic-money-payment-instit...

Yes. They only got the EU banking license in December. It will take at least 1-2 years before they become a bank. They will start in Estonia and then passport their banking license to other countries, eventually to UK, too. For now they are still using LLoyds bank account to hold all customer money in UK and are electronic money institution.

> They have received a bank license recently so they are in process of becoming a full fledged bank.

Sounds great, and I hope TransferWise go down that route one day too. But it still doesn't mean your Revolut account is the same as a Lloyds one.