Table of Contents

• EDITOR’S RAMBLE 🗣

• FEATURED REPORT 📰

• A BIT OF FUN 😄

• IN OTHER NEWS 🗞

• AROUND THE WEB 🌐

• STUFF THAT MIGHT HELP YOU 👌

EDITOR’S RAMBLE 🗣

Hey, it’s Laura here!

In last week’s newsletter, I asked how much money matters to you when choosing a career in corporate law.

And you let me know — we got 284 responses!

Here’s how the vote turned out 👇️

💷 If money was no object, what would you do?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Go for a career with greater social impact (63%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Switch to a different high-earning, ambitious job (22%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Still pursue a career in corporate law (15%)

It seems most of us are in corporate law for the money — if we had financial security, we’d do something else.

That’s why I like this article from 80,000 Hours (a non-profit that gives careers advice based on research into social impact). It explains how we can do good without changing careers.

One example it gives is donating 10% of your salary to effective charities, like the Against Malaria Foundation. If you do this over a 40-year career, you could save around 40 lives. To put this into perspective, a typical doctor saves about three lives during their whole career.

So perhaps actually we don’t have to choose between a highly-paid career and having a social impact — it might be possible to achieve both.

Here are some of the reasons you shared (I enjoyed reading them):

I’d go for a career with greater social impact:

• “If money was no object I wouldn’t put myself through the brutality of TC applications and the SQE.“

• “Even if money were a priority, the costs of furthering harmful industries will ultimately come back to haunt us. There are no mergers on a dead planet.“

• “Being a singer-songwriter, working as an English teacher, trying loads of different jobs until I find something I love.”

• “If money was not an issue, many would strive for things that interest them, and for many, it’s not M&A deals or a 15 hour work day.”

I’d switch to a different high-earning, ambitious job:

• “Money is money, corporate law is money. No money, no corporate law - The Godfather”

• “Anyone voting go for a career with greater social impact is lying”

• “If money was no object, I’d dedicate my time to studying social history (in my personal time, and for creative reasons), then academically I’d specialise in my existing field of early years, into play therapy and child-friendly ASMR, and then pursue my legal studies part-time (so I can use it for mostly contractual and pro-bono work)“

I’d still pursue a career in corporate law:

• “I'm going into law for the love of the law.”

- Laura

FEATURED REPORT 📰

💸 Why you should care about Revolut’s £1 billion profit

What’s going on here?

This week, Revolut (a British fintech company) announced it’s made £1 billion in pre-tax profit in 2024 — the first time in its history.

The news comes after it was valued at $45 billion in August 2024. That made it Europe’s most valuable start-up and the UK’s second-most valuable bank, ahead of Barclays, Lloyds, and NatWest (HSBC is the most valuable).

What’s driving Revolut’s profit increase?

Revolut made £438 million in pre-tax profit in 2023. In 2024, that number jumped to £1 billion — a 149% increase.

This growth comes from three main areas, which pushed revenue from £1.8 billion in 2023 to £3.1 billion in 2024.

👥 More customers: Revolut now has 52.5 million customers — 14.5 million more than last year. That’s even more than HSBC. These customers are active. They’re using Revolut cards to make payments and holding £30 billion in savings. This has helped grow two of Revolut’s main income streams: the fees it earns when people use Revolut cards to pay for things, and the interest it earns from money held in customer accounts. More people are also paying for Revolut’s £7.99 Premium plan, which comes with extra perks (like access to Uber One and Headspace).

🚀 Crypto exchange launch: Last year, Revolut launched a new crypto exchange called Revolut X. It lets users buy over 100 cryptocurrencies using pounds, euros, or dollars. The fees are low — 0% to buy and 0.09% to sell.

Revolut had struggled to grow in the US. But a push by the Trump administration to ease crypto rules has made Americans more interested in trading. This helped Revolut attract more US customers.

💳 More lending: Revolut has expanded its lending and now has £979 million in loans. This includes credit cards and buy now, pay later products. Revolut earns a lot of interest from these loans.

It’s helped by the high base interest rate set by European central banks. As this rate goes up, banks like Revolut can charge more for loans — which means they make more money from interest.

What’s next for Revolut?

Revolut has two big goals for the rest of 2025.

1. 🏦 Launching “banks” in the UK and Mexico: It plans to officially launch banks in the UK and Mexico (though, these will still be online). It now has licences in both countries. This means it can start offering loans — and possibly even mortgages — to customers there. In the UK, it’s already been testing mortgage products behind the scenes.

2. 📈 Reaching 100 million customers: Revolut also wants to double its customer base, aiming to reach 100 million users.

There are also rumours that Revolut might launch its own stablecoin. A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to keep a steady price, usually by being tied to a currency like the pound or dollar. This would go be offered around the world, so it may take time to set up due to regulatory challenges in different countries.

What about an IPO?

Revolut says it has no current plans to go public. It hasn’t set a timeline for an IPO. Right now, it’s focused on growing, expanding worldwide, and creating new products for its users.

In August 2024, the UK Treasury spoke with Revolut to encourage it to list in London if it ever decides to sell shares to the public. But Revolut still prefers the idea of listing in the US, on the Nasdaq.

Co-founder Nikolay Storonsky said, “The London Stock Exchange is much less liquid, so I just don’t see the point.” This follows a wider trend — more companies are choosing to list outside the UK.

How can you use this in your applications?

Revolut’s growth comes from more than just being a digital bank. Yes, it offers the basics like fee-free travel cards and a easy-to-use app. But it has also built an ecosystem — a range of services that keep customers coming back, like:

• Budgeting tools

• Stock trading within the app

• A crypto exchange with low fees

• Personal loans (mainly in the EU)

• Travel cards with no foreign payment fees

These extras go beyond what most challenger banks offer. Instead of being a one-product business, Revolut has become a one-stop shop for its users’ financial needs. That’s why many people now use Revolut as their main bank instead of big names like HSBC or Barclays.

So, how can this help you in an interview or case study exercise?

Well, if you’re asked to advise a start-up or suggest ways for a company to grow, think like Revolut. What add-ons could help turn a single product into a full ecosystem? What services would keep customers loyal?

You can even use Revolut as an example when explaining your suggestion: “Revolut went from being just a digital bank to a full financial platform. That helped it win more market share and customer loyalty.”

This shows you understand how real companies grow and the kinds of decisions they make to stay competitive.

A BIT OF FUN 😄

it’s gonna be a long day

littlelawnews

17K followers

View more on Instagram

IN OTHER NEWS 🗞

• 📱 Apple and Meta just got hit with the first-ever fines under Europe’s new Digital Markets Act. Apple must pay €500 million because app makers didn’t tell users about cheaper options outside its App Store. Meta faces a €200 million fine for not giving users a choice about how their data is used. While Apple and Meta criticised the decisions, saying they’re being unfairly targeted, some lawyers said the fines were actually pretty low, maybe because EU officials wanted to avoid angering the US during a tense political climate.

• ⚖️ London is the new top spot for arbitration, edging out Singapore. In a global survey by White & Case, 34% of people picked London as their go-to place for resolving disputes, while Singapore and Hong Kong followed close behind. All three cities are popular because they have strong legal systems and courts you can trust. But London and Singapore stood out — they were the only two ranked in the top five across every world region.

• 💼 Over 100 people at law firm DWF could lose their jobs. The firm was bought by private equity group Inflexion last year, after a rocky time on the stock market. Now, it's shifting focus to global M&A work, especially in the US. As part of that plan, both lawyers and support staff are at risk of being let go.

• 🏦 HSBC might stop holding an in person annual general meeting (for all its shareholders). This year’s event is still happening at a London hotel, but future ones could go fully online. That’s because it’s expensive to rent space and hire security. Plus, protests — especially from climate groups like Extinction Rebellion — have made these meetings hard to manage. Going digital would save money and avoid the risk of disruption.

AROUND THE WEB 🌐

• ☀️ Sunny: Find cafés near you that are sunny right now

• 🍪 Yum: Apparently we’ve all been eating chocolate digestives wrong

• 🕹️ Fun: Guess the year of these random old images are from (it’s super fun — I got an average of 10.2 years off from 5 guesses)

STUFF THAT MIGHT HELP YOU 👌

• 📹️ Free application help: If you're applying to commercial law firms, check out my YouTube channel for actionable tips and an insight into the lifestyle of a commercial lawyer in London.