Fast-growing financial technology firm Revolut, which was founded in the middle of 2015, now has more than 500,000 customers in Ireland, according to the new head of the company's Irish operations.

The figure is up from 200,000 Irish customers the company said it had at the end of last year.

Speaking at a conference organised by the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), Joe Heneghan, who joined the firm last month from Ulster Bank, having spent more than two decades in the banking sector, said that Revolut's Irish workforce has trebled to nine since he joined the firm and that there are further plans to "scale up the team". He did not give a target.

Revolut has nine million retail and 100,000 business customers internationally and close to 1,500 employees, he said.

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The appointment of Mr Heneghan coincided with Revolut's decision this year to apply for an electronic money licence from the Central Bank of Ireland. In doing so, it is following in the footsteps of Facebook, Stripe, Soldo and Prepaid Financial Services in obtaining the licence which allows them to issue payments across the European Union under passporting rights.

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Mr Heneghan also suggested that Dublin could become a technology centre for Revolut.

Meanwhile, Bank of Ireland’s director of distributional channels, Áine McCleary, confirmed that the lender is on track to launch its new mobile app by the end of this year, as part of its ongoing €1.15 billion technology overhaul programme.

“The most important thing about the new app will be its agility,” said Ms McCleary. “It will, from day one, have 50 per cent more functionality than the current app. Literally from then on, on a biweekly or bimonthly basis, we will be adding on the functionality.”

The bank had said in August, however, that Apple Pay and Google Pay technology will not be part of the new app when it is initially launched. It was originally expected that the bank, which is behind rivals AIB, Ulster Bank and KBC in launching Apple Pay and Google Pay, would introduce such technology this year.