The founder of Europe’s most valuable fintech company has criticised Britain’s “extreme bureaucracy” as he launched an attack on the UK’s high taxes and red tape.

Nikolay Storonsky, chief executive of Revolut, which is based in London, accused regulators of slowing down its application for a banking licence and said he would never choose the UK as a place to list the company.

Mr Storonsky said: “It’s hard to do business in the UK: the exchange is much less liquid so I just don’t see the point.

“In the UK there are higher taxes to pay and an extremely bureaucratic regulator.”

He added that he wanted to keep Revolut in private ownership but said it would choose the Nasdaq in the US over London if it were to go public.

It comes after the head of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) warned that Britain was being held back by a campaign against pay, after a string of companies snubbed the UK market in favour of the US.

Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the LSE, urged British investors on Wednesday to change their attitude toward high pay and warned of a disparity with the US where executives are typically paid more.

Revolut was valued at $33bn (£26bn) in 2021 after funding from global tech investors SoftBank and Tiger Global. 

This makes it Europe’s most valuable fintech company, after declines in Klarna and Checkout.com, which had secured higher valuations.

Mr Storonsky said that Britain was “completely the opposite” of a supportive environment in the US and criticised the regulator for dragging its feet on issuing the company a banking licence.

“US tech champions are so supported by the Government: all the lobbyists, politicians, governors, they always promote business, business, business and it is completely the opposite in the UK,” Mr Storonsky told The Times at the Web Summit conference in Rio. 

“We have experienced a slowing down. You never know what needs to be done here.”

He said Revolut’s two-year attempt to secure a banking licence had been a “long and tiring process”. 

“You wait for emails or letters for months. This is not the business environment to operate in the modern world,” he said.

The Prudential Regulation Authority, which grants banking licences, did not comment.

On Tuesday, the Financial Conduct Authority announced proposals to overhaul the City’s listing regime and bring its rules more in line with the US, just weeks after UK tech darling Arm snubbed the LSE in favour of New York.

Numis, the investment bank, posted a 55pc drop in half-year profits on Friday as the London stock market grapples with listings drought.

Last week, the video games giant Activision accused Britain of being “closed for business” after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked its sale to Microsoft.

It came as Mr Hunt’s new economic adviser cautioned against using tax cuts as a “quick fix” to boost growth and called for more generous incentives to boost business investment.

Anna Valero, a senior policy fellow at London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, said on Friday that the Chancellor must go beyond tax cuts to revive Britain’s anaemic growth.

Ms Valero told Bloomberg’s UK Politics Podcast: “If it was as easy as cutting taxes, then we would’ve seen that during the years that we had particularly low corporate tax.

“The tax environment matters, but there are many other things we need to be doing for improving growth.

“Within the tax environment, we can be thinking about incentives for investment rather than the headline rate.”