Want to work for Revolut? Then you’ll probably encounter their problem‑solving interview: a significant and demanding part of the hiring process.
In this article, Coach Mariana will walk you through exactly how the interview works, what skills it tests, and how you can prepare to stand out. Whether you're new to case-style interviews or just want to sharpen your skills, her goal is to help you approach Revolut’s process with confidence and clarity.
Revolut is a UK-based fintech company founded in 2015. It offers digital banking services such as current accounts, international transfers, cards, and investment options, and is now active in more than 35 countries.
At Revolut, the problem-solving interview is a core step in the hiring process. You’ll be asked to tackle a real or realistic business situation in 30–40 minutes, working through it live with your interviewer.
The purpose isn’t to see whether you know the “right answer.” In most cases, there isn’t one. Instead, the focus is on how you think: can you bring structure to an ambiguous question, work with data, do the math, make reasonable assumptions, brainstorm solutions, and communicate clearly?
I know this sounds a bit conceptual right now, but don’t worry! I’ll break it down for you in a moment! 🙂
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What Will Revolut’s Problem-Solving Interview Assess?
The Revolut problem-solving interview usually covers six main areas:
Structuring – Breaking down a broad problem into clear, logical components while being MECE.
Chart Reading – Interpreting data exhibits to extract relevant insights connected to the case objective.
Case Math – Performing calculations to support arguments. Don’t worry about mental math; so far 100% of my clients were allowed to use calculators or Excel, just confirm this with your HR point of contact. 😉
Brainstorming – Generating creative yet practical ideas within a structured MECE framework.
Communication – Explaining your thought process in a clear, confident, top-down way.
Breaking Down Each Component of Revolut’s Problem-Solving Interview
Let us now take a look at each component of Revolut’s problem-solving interview:
Structuring
What it means: Turning a broad question into an organized, step-by-step plan (MECE).
MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive. It means your breakdown should have no overlaps and should cover all relevant points.
A basic example could be: Internal factors vs. External factors. (Just to illustrate the concept, don’t use it blindly without context!)
Typical questions include:
“Why might Revolut’s card transactions be declining in one market?”
“How could Revolut grow its revenues next year?”
“How could we improve the onboarding process of new clients?”
Step-by-step method
Repeat the prompt to confirm you understood it correctly, even if it’s simple.
Clarify the scope and success criteria, as you would in a real project. Think like an executive who needs clear boundaries and high-level context.
Draft 3–4 broad categories that are MECE.
Add sub-categories under each to guide your analysis.
Explain your structure out loud, linking your rationale back to the case objective.
State explicitly what your next step will be, that’s what makes it a candidate-led interview.
Use your structure as the roadmap for the rest of the case.
Why it makes sense
Imagine you lost your wallet at home. A MECE approach would be to search room by room until you’ve covered the entire house. That way, you know the wallet must be found within that scope.
Prioritization then comes into play: if you just walked in, the most likely places are the entryway or living room. If you have a playful baby (like I do), you might check unusual spots, like the washing machine! 😉
Applied to a business case related to profitability in a tech company:
If profits are down, breaking the problem into revenues and costs guarantees you’ll find the answer, because the issue must lie within that scope.
Chart Reading
What it means: Extracting insights from data exhibits like tables, bar charts, or line graphs.
Typical questions:
“Here’s a breakdown of revenues by product line. What stands out?”
“This chart shows churn by age group. What do you observe?”
Step-by-step method
Take 15–20 seconds to read silently, then confirm your understanding with the interviewer.
Look for trends, outliers, and comparisons. Don’t narrate line by line.
Identify key insights connected to the case objective. (Remember: you’re solving for the “wallet,” not random objects.)
State the findings clearly, avoiding a full narration of every number.
Link insights back to your structure, then say what your next step will be.
To exercise this skill, I recommend you to take a look into McKinsey and Bainarticles in their official websites. There are plenty of exhibits for you to interpret. Make sure to not take a peek into their main insights described in the article before trying to figure them out by yourself.
Case Math
What it means: Doing calculations to size a problem, test scenarios, or evaluate options.
Typical questions:
“If Revolut launches a premium product, how would you calculate annual revenue?”
“How many customers would Revolut need for this feature to break even?”
“What’s the market size for fintechs in Germany?”
Step-by-step method
Repeat the prompt and given numbers.
Write out the formula before plugging in numbers, confirm your logic first.
Perform the math step by step. Use a calculator/Excel if allowed and share your screen.
Round where it makes sense (say it explicitly).
Check if the result seems realistic.
Always ask: “So what?” → link the number back to the case objective.
Brainstorming
What it means: Coming up with a structured list of ideas to solve a challenge, often after analyzing data.
Typical questions:
“What strategies could Revolut use to increase user engagement?”
“What options could Revolut explore to reduce fraud?”
Step-by-step method
Pause and set a structure before listing ideas.
You can use contrasts (internal vs. external), processes (customer journey), or frameworks (Ansoff, 4Ps, BCG) depending on the case.
Generate ideas within each category. Cover obvious options first, then push for creative ones.
Explain why each idea could matter.
Prioritize based on rationale (context, feasibility, impact).
Example:
“You’re advising a restaurant that wants to increase revenue without changing its business model. What ideas do you have?”
Communication
Even the best analysis fails without clear communication.
Tips to keep in mind:
Speak in short, structured points.
Use signposting (“There are three reasons. Reason 1…”).
Summarize frequently.
End with a confident recommendation.
Example – Non Top-Down:
“So, the company has been facing revenue issues. Region A dropped by 15% and we don't know why, Region B actually grew, but its impact is irrelevant. Marketing spend increased $10M but unclear ROI so far, definitely need to check further. Retention also fell by 5%. So overall, there are a lot of moving parts.”
Example – Top-Down:
“The company’s profitability problem stems from 3 main factors:
Sales dropped 15% in Region A.
Marketing spend increased $10M with no clear ROI.
Customer retention fell 5%.
Since Region A’s decline represents 40% of the impact, I suggest we focus there first. As a next step, I’d like to understand…”
In short: stay structured, stay top-down, and remember: your interviewer wants to follow your thinking, not solve a riddle. 🙂
Revolut’s Candidate-Led Interviews: Taking the Driver’s Seat
Revolut uses a candidate-led format. The interviewer won’t guide you step by step (though they may nudge you in a direction).
How to handle it:
Start strong with a clear structure.
Be proactive in asking for data.
Always connect findings back to the case objective.
Drive the discussion forward, don’t wait for hints.
Summarize progress regularly so the interviewer can follow your logic.
👉 Practice candidate-led interviews with our wide selection of practice cases in our Case Library. You can easily filter between candidate-led and interviewer-led formats!
As one of three management consultants with many years of experience, you have SET yourself the goal of founding your own management consultancy. The topics, contents and solution offering with which you can advise and support potential customers are clear. The legal company is already founded and registered in the commercial register. Now you must pitch your business plan to the banks to get the necessary start-up financing!Especially the banks are interested in the underlying rationale of the SET Management Consulting business model. Your goal is to think of relevant financial KPIs and be prepared to explain the underlying revenue and cost streams in more detail.
Your client is a pharmaceutical company which is worried about the portfolio optimization of their R&D projects.They hired us to investigate it and help them make the most return of their R&D investments in the short and mid-term (without totally forgetting the long-term horizon).How would you go about it and what would you recommend the client to do?
Your client is a leading retail coffee chain. They are present in several countries globally and are a popular brand in most of the markets that they operate in, with several thousands stores in operation.A key focus of the company currently is diversity & inclusion. In their biggest market which is the US, 1 in 4 people have some sort of disability. One realization the client has had is that their retail stores are not as inclusive to individuals with disabilities. McKinsey has been brought on to help them design more inclusive spaces in their retail stores.
Your client is the Government of Indonesia, specifically a joint committee formed between a few key ministries including the Ministry of Marine Affairs & Fisheries, Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Environment & Forestry. Indonesia is one of the largest developing countries in the world, with a population of about 285M people and an average monthly income of only USD 500. Located in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is actually a vast archipelago comprised of 17,000 islands, giving it one of the longest and most complex coastlines in the world. It is also part of the Coral Triangle, an area demarcated by scientists as the global epicenter of marine diversity. Your client tells you that Indonesia's once pristine coral reefs have seen a rapid decline over the past decade. They have come to you for help and want to figure out what is causing the problem.
Sensorio Hightech GmbH is a leading manufacturer of technically advanced consumer electronics sensors based in Germany with EUR 500 m in revenues. It is a successfully growing affiliate with technically advanced consumer electronics sensors as its main business. Sensorio Hightech GmbH is looking at the smart home market for further growth. In addition, the company is aiming to tap into new regional markets. You are a member of a consulting team mandated by Sensorio Hightech GmbH to:assess possible new target segments in the smart home market(optional – if there’s time left: recommend go-to-market measures)The company is looking for a recommendation answering the following questions, taking into account Sensorio’s capabilities and current situation in various regions, the overall market environment, and smart home ecosystem:Smart home market segmentation & attractiveness analysis (qualitative & quantitative)What are relevant market segments of the smart home market?What are potential factors that determine the market segment's attractiveness for Sensorio Hightech GmbH?Which market segment(s) is/are most attractive for Sensorio Hightech GmbH to enter, and why?(Optional: Entry strategy (qualitative))How does the strategy to successfully entering the target segment(s) look like?What are the crucial factors Sensorio Hightech GmbH needs to get right?What parts of the value chain does Sensorio Hightech GmbH want to cover?
A manufacturer of tires in Laos has had a monopoly in the market for years due to high tariff on imports. If foreign producers wanted to import tires, they would have to pay a high import tariff which makes up 40% of the total cost to produce and ship to Laos. The Laotian government has now decided to lower the tariffs by 4% each year for the next ten years to open up the market to foreign companies and achieve lower consumer prices. Our client is concerned this move will affect their market position and hired us to investigate the effects and help them decide what to do.
Your client tk Commodity Trade (tk ComT) is a global materials trader - they buy and sell raw materials. tk ComT had stable EBITDA margins in recent years. They consider expanding their target market and entering the Lithium (electric vehicle battery grade) trade, due to the current high demand for electric cars and Lithium-ion batteries. The client is concerned about minimizing the cash spending and about improving the payback period for this market-entry campaign, due to corporate cash policy.As a consultant, you are expected to calculate the size of the Lithium market and to assess the payback periods for an organic market entry (with own resources) as well as for the acquisition of an established company. Finally, the client expects a proposal about the best market entry strategy and potential opportunities and risks.
Sie sind Abschlussprüfer der CarVermietungen GmbH, einem deutschen Unternehmen, das geleaste Fahrzeuge europaweit an Privat- und Geschäftskunden weitervermietet.Im Rahmen der Prüfung führen Sie Interviews mit dem Management des Unternehmens durch. Dabei wecken insbesondere die langfristigen ökologischen und digitalen Herausforderungen der Firma Ihr Interesse. Sie erfahren unter anderem, dass die Hauptunterschiede zum üblichen Geschäft in einem Transformationsplan liegen und lassen sich vom CFO den Plan vorstellen.Die Finanzdirektorin teilt Ihnen stolz mit, dass die CarVermietungen GmbH in die Elektrifizierung der Fahrzeugflotte investiert. Die Anzahl der Elektroautos wird im Lagebericht veröffentlicht. Die CarVermietungen GmbH bietet ihren Kunden seit dem vierten Quartal eine Erweiterung zum bestehenden Bonusprogramm an. Die Kunden können ihre gesammelten Bonuspunkte am Jahresende auf ein Umweltprogramm übertragen, das vorwiegend in den Anbau von Bäumen und Wasseralgen investiert, um die klimafreundliche CO2-Bindung zu fördern. In diesem Zusammenhang hat das Unternehmen auch eine weitere Zielgruppe definiert und eine entsprechende Kundenliste erstellt. Darüber hinaus wurden im laufenden Geschäftsjahr durch den Zukauf von Daten über ein soziales Netzwerk zusätzlich neue Kunden hinzugewonnen.Die CarVermietungen GmbH hat im letzten Quartal außerdem in P2P-Carsharing investiert, da sich dieses neue Geschäftsmodell im Ausland bereits als vielversprechend erwiesen hat. Private Autobesitzer haben die Möglichkeit, ihr Fahrzeug über die Carsharing-Plattform anzubieten und die Vermietung gänzlich über eine App abzuwickeln. Die Mietwagengebühren betragen ein Drittel des Mietwertes und die CarVermietungen GmbH zahlt eine Versicherung, die jeden Kunden abdeckt. Die Versicherungsprämien für das Folgejahr wurden bereits ausgezahlt.
We are a warehouser (B2B) and have been facing a decline in profits since past 2 years. We would like you to figure out why this is happening and provide recommendations to reverse this trend.
Du berätst den USB-Stick Produzenten "Sticky". Das bisher profitable USB-Stick Geschäft wird dieses Jahr zum ersten Mal rote Zahlen schreiben. Dein Klient würde gerne wissen, wie er wieder Gewinne erzielen kann.
If you have ever been in Bangkok, you would have noticed these motorcycles transporting people from A to B as an alternative means of transportation. These motorcycles typically transport people on short distances such as nearby train stations, supermarkets or food stalls.Your job is to estimate how much profit a motorcycle can generate in a month’s work meaning that you have to estimate both revenue & cost to be able to estimate profit.
Our client is Hunger Warriors, a non-profit with ambitions to solve world hunger. While approximately one tenth of the human population goes to bed hungry, Hunger Warriors aims to bring this number to zero. One of their primary initiatives is to reduce food waste, which represents $1.5 Trillion in lost value per year. They have tasked us with identifying the major sources of food waste and determining the best course of action to reduce this. Clarifying questions:You can think of them as similar to the WHO or the UN in their scope and reachAll options are on the table to reduce food wasteWe do not have a set budget = this is dependent on the donations and funding we are able to get
Your client, Virgin Mobile, is interested in offering telematics services to vehicles in the USA with a new brand: Carmatics.Should they enter this new market? If yes, how should they do it?
Our client is a supermarket chain in Britain called Sparx. They have been the market leader for more than 30 years. However 5 years ago they have seen growth stall and 2 years later revenues started shrinking, keeping so until today. The profitability of the chain has followed the revenue downturn trend, but dropped in percentage much more than the revenues.They now hold only 25% market share, with the second player getting dangerously closer with 23%.What’s wrong and how can you help them turn this situation around?
You are part of the Strategy & Operations team at Revolut.Revolut has had significant growth over the past couple of years, with customer base growing 20-30% per year. Our apps have also been highly rated in the various app stores - be it GooglePlay or on the Apple store.Revolut's current customer strategy is to segment customers based on their subscription tiers/plans. Standard: FreePlus: $3.99/mthPremium: $7.99/mthMetal: $14.99/mthUltra: Ultra $55/mthKey differentiation between the plans are in the pricing and features. Namely, the more expensive tiers like Metal and Ultra have additional features such as personalized and premium card design, free access to lifestyle apps (e.g. Financial Times, Class Pass etc), better FX rates and priority customer support.It's great that Revolut has been expanding rapidly, but we are starting to see some stresses on our existing operations and processes. One key area of concern is in customer service, our satisfaction scores have started to trend down and call center headcounts and costs have been increasing in recent years, but we are struggling to handle the load of incoming requests and tickets.You have been tasked to lead a project to solve this problem without ballooning costs.
Our client is a start-up company that wants to mass-produce an electric vehicle for the US market.So far it has developed a prototype all-electric vehicle.They hired us to solve the problem of swapping to mass-production.
Dubai Airport has decided to counter the chaos in the airport taxi service by commencing a bidding process to assign airport taxi services to 3 operators only. After years of cheating passengers, black-market drivers and unlicensed cabs, the airport has had enough of the problems and is now taking action. They are retracting all existing permits and are issuing 2,100 new permits to the three largest operators in the country.Our client is a local Big-three taxi operator with a 3,000 car fleet, but he is not servicing the airport yet. He has a spare capacity of 500 taxis and he is considering applying for 500 new permits, but he doesn’t know if he will get a positive return on his investment.He asked us to help him determine if he should pursue applying for the permits or not.
The client, VacuLuxe Innovations, is a manufacturer for vacuum pumps, e.g. rotary vane pumps, cryogenic pumps located in Germany. The company has grown from a start-up to a major corporation over the last 50 years. However, after benchmarking the economics of their business, the client discovered that their direct spend (i.e., COGS supplier spend) represented a higher percentage of their revenue than their closest competitors.The client's top management has engaged the SCM and procurement specialized consultancy Inverto to advise the company in this critical situation.An initial meeting with the CPO of VacuLuxe Innovations will be conducted tomorrow. VacuLuxe Innovations aims to discuss optimization potentials in the current collaboration with suppliers as well as levers to improve the supply chain resilience & carbon footprint. Unfortunately, VacuLuxe Innovations has only submitted the following high level data for their direct spend yet.
Your client is a D2C (direct to customer) online fashion business in a developing country. It is a new brand, launched about 2 years ago and founded by ex-investment bankers. Their brand focuses on trendy, edgy design that is less main-stream (versus big brands like H&M, Uniqlo, Zara etc) for adult men. While they have been growing fast, they want to understand how they can further improve their sales.
The Revolut problem-solving interview is demanding but highly learnable. By practicing each of the 5 components, structuring, chart reading, math, brainstorming, and communication, you’ll be ready to handle ambiguity and pressure.
Approach each question step by step, stay MECE in your thinking, and keep your communication top-down and crisp. That’s how you show Revolut you can think and act like one of their strategists from day one.
If you have come this far, congratulations!
👉 Want to put these methods into practice? Book a case session with me and let’s work through real Revolut-style problems together.
#1 coach for Revolut | ex Mckinsey ex Nubank | Consulting & Fintech | Clients hired by Revolut, McKinsey, Kearney & more
Case coach with over 200+ sessions experience
Personal Storytelling and Behavioral Interview/PEI Prep
Languages: English, Portuguese
Mariana is a case interview coach on PrepLounge and a former McKinsey consultant. She supports candidates throughout the consulting recruiting process – from crafting impactful CVs to mastering fit and case interviews – with a strong focus on structure, communication, and confidence.
