Transferwise has real human phone support, which so far was great for my business account.
+1 for prices - I am paying Transferwise fees with pleasure, knowing all those money are returning back to me via great services.
Yep, Transferwise Borderless is quite great. They also offer things that Revolut doesn't such as U.S. bank account, plus Revolut just feels bloated and complex with hidden fees.
TransferWise has a robust "no bovine manure" approach. I've used different kinds of services from them over four years, and they have been consistently excellent. I make sure to tell so whenever I talk to them, and politely make a note to not lose sight of the valuable things that customers are happy about (transparency, competent human support).
And I like it that they charge a decent price. I have a general allergy to "gratis services", especially in finance-related things.
I wouldn’t say it’s “everything free”. If you purchase outside of FOREX hours you pay 2% on top of every tx. People tend to spend more when they have free time, i.e. on weekends, where the 2% fee applies.
My guess is that Revolut is doing just great in terms of revenue.
Revolut is predatory and walking on the line of legality. I would stay as far away as I can from them.
- Unfair/illegal employment practices. [1]
- Dubios crypto service (you can buy and sell but there is no way to transfer in or out) [2]
- Keeping a firewall between customers and company by only allowing communication via app chatbot [3]
- Accusations of money laundry. [4]
- Many people have had their accounts frozen or even money stolen. [5]
Revolut closed my business account with them and would not give me any reason why (all documentation was OK, all my clients are lilly-white busineses).
It is not clear to me if they would not tell me because they're not allowed to by law - or "just because".
Anyway - then the remaining balance on my account - they simply sent that back to the last payment that had been made => They sent my remaining balance to one of my clients!
Great API, great interface, great app, great prices - but I do not trust them any more, obviously.
As others have mentioned these are money laundering laws. But some of them are a bit open to interpretation and from what I've seen personally Revoluts interpretation is pretty broad depending on whether they like you or not.
The problem with Revolut that cannot be compared to other banks is that you will NEVER be able to speak to anyone that isn't a mindless support chat drone. This is really where the big difference is. The APP may be miles ahead of wells fargos or capital one and even N26 which in theory also has mainly chat based support etc. but if something goes wrong there there are channels to go. Here's it's just a huge black hole.
The only way I would ever recommend Revolut to anyone is to attach it to your own credit card and fill it on demand when you travel. I only ever fill the amount I want right now because the last time I transferred money to my account the account got flagged and I had an absolutely horrible experience with a bunch of conflicting statements from mindless drones that kept trying to trick me into giving them way more information than any bank in any country I've ever used ever has.
When I opened my Revolut account I took advantage of their referral scheme. I would get €15 for every customer I referred to them and who used their debit card. The new customers would also get €15. I got five people to sign up, the max.
We never saw the money. When I raised the issue over chat they told me that all my referrals took too long to setup their account and make the first payments. They wouldn't tell me what the time limits was though. Every referral made their first payment within 30 days, so that doesn't seem too long for such an offer if you ask me.
At this point I was using it as my primary account so it wasn't like I was just signing up to get referral bonuses.
This experience made me think they weren't as trustworthy as they claimed to be.
In my experience at UK banks (trying to avoid embarrassing anyone by name here) what you're obligated to submit a SAR for is pretty broad and once you've SAR'd someone you almost always close their account with no reason given. So this experience will be reasonably common at every bank that does business in the UK
That seems very strange. Because they are licensed by the UK FCA under the "emoney regulations" I think you should be able to take the case to the financial services ombudsman if you are a UK client, have made a complaint and they haven't resolved it to your satisfaction. Most other European countries would have a similar setup.
To be fair, big banks like HSBC and Barclays also do this. Plenty of horror stories around. There needs to be a law so they could at least notify people a month or two beforehand and provide a reason...
I have kept a paid Revolut account for the last nearly two years, and it has performed flawlessly. The one time when I needed support, reply was prompt, polite, professional, and to the point.
This is service I use for day-to-day business. I never keep large sums there, so if the whole thing goes belly up one day, it will cause a shrug and not much more. Topping up from my 'real' bank - or wherever - is easy enough to do on the fly: I sometimes do so while queueing in the supermarket.
Features I like, and which are apparently beyond the ability of my regular bank to offer: Virtual and diposible cards. I use these for all web transanctions. No need to spread the details of my physical card around, and I can temporarily lock any card number, should I feel the need. Also, the physical card is discreet of appearance; just a grey piece of plastic, not screaming my banking preference for the world to see.
And a handy ability to instantly create a payment link where anyone can pay me via credit card.
I happily pay my monthly fee. Service well worth it.
You may soon discover (depending on your jurisdiction) that topping up is no longer an option, because your actual bank starts treating these transactions as cash advances, 3%-4% fee (and trashing your credit rating too).
Revolut has been completely useless about this, and their chat teams are just there to waste your time.
Multiple currencies and cheap exchange are great when you travel a lot, and virtual credit cards and a nice spending UI are nice to haves. But nothing makes up for being jerked around for hours because their system is broken and they won't fix it.
Also, from an investment pov I think Apple Pay is going to crush them.
I'm also very sceptical of that 10 million customers line.
Do you think its just people that have opened an account with them at any point? I bet the DAU (a reasonable metric for someones main bank, especially in today's cashless society) is a very small percentage of that.
I'm one of those "customers". I tried using connecting to my old account to check out the app after 4 years but I was asked for ID verification, which for some reason failed, in order to be able to do anything. I can't close my account since there's a 20 eurocent balance on it, so it probably still counts as a "customer" account even though I can't use it in any way.
> a reasonable metric for someones main bank, especially in today's cashless society
In Europe, the primary region for Revolut at the moment, cashlessness is highly variable. In a country like the UK or The Netherlands, DAU might be a reasonable measure but in say Germany, which is largely still cash-based, it's less relevant.
I'd say MAU or something like that makes more sense for a predominantly European financial service (Revolut is not a bank, it does not offer bank accounts).
I'm less skeptical that they have a high number of active users, but probably not a high number of users that use this "bank" like a real bank.
I use another "neobank" called Simple in the US. It is not a primary account. It is how I divvy up allowance to my wife and I for our weekly fun money ($70/person/week). Can be spent on anything we want, but once it's gone its gone. I use mine for lunches, she packs a lunch and uses hers for shopping. We both save a certain percentage of that to pay for vacations.
Our typical average monthly balance is in the low 3 figures. Like currently I have $110 in savings and $45 in checking. I have no clue about how much my wife has, and that is the beauty of it.
I just use it when abroad (my high street bank FX is terrible) so I might be one of those casual customers. The crypto and "premium" features don't interest me in the slightest.
I might be just outside the millennial target market though.
I've used revolut for the last to years and it seems to me that most people here are misunderstanding the way the app is used.
It is a prepaid credit card - cash without cash, which lets you send cash to your friends, top up from your actual bank account, change currency when you are visiting another country. I wouldn't use it for big currency exchanges.
You have to watch the news to know what Revolut is up to and when to revisit the privacy settings to turn off a new toggle - social media platform this month, credit agencies the next
I find it absolutely astonishing people would pour half a billion into a fintech company which puts real money transactions on the same platform as a betting game and even worse, a betting game which claims it's some sort of digital money. (bitcoin) I never used Revolut because of this and never will. To be fair, I never used Revolut because I thought bitcoin is a scam but since last November I know better.
Revolut is where WeWork was a few years ago. Eventually a few guys will make some nice money and the whole thing will go down the drain. VC money is nice, however at some point you need to start making your own money and how they are planning to do so is a question nobody has an answer to.
It feels like they are going the traditional bank route, give away a basic product and charge fees for everything over a threshold.
Looking at their business pricing page, it looks like they are going to get into commercial lending, which could prove profitable. I don't know if it is VC-scale, though.
Most big, successful banks that have withstood the test of time have grown VERY slowly over nearly 200 years and acquired a lot of local banks along the way.
I don't recall all of the numbers but my brother (a small-town-bank vp) told me not that long ago that most small town banks will profit between $1M and $5M per year (5-10% return on equity). A small bank will usually have a few thousand customers.
So if Revolut has 10M customers (2000x bigger than a small town bank), and the customers are using Revolut like they would their small town banks, they should be profitable at some point.
You could say the same about Transferwise. Revolut is setting themselves up as a bank for millenials/gen Z. It is light years ahead of traditional banks in terms of user experience. Banks are a proven way of making money.
Wework was silly because real estate is not software. The profits needed to eventually justify all that "burn-to-grow" money was never possible regardless of scale.
It's not an AdWords Vs Yahoo ads situation. The market leader isn't taking all the profits.
Banking isn't software either, but banking is banking... It's where the money is, lol.
Seriously, financial services is rich, rich pickings... Insurance, lending, business accounts, transfers....
A bank with low operating costs and millions of employees is worth a lot.
If it was a truly American company, I suspect the market cap would be way higher... UK investors are more cautious, and the company is a little dicey
On the name, I doubt it would be successful in the US. The “lution” part of revolution makes the word sound better. Without it, it invokes “revolting”. Incidentally, Revolution Money in the US became American Express Serve.
Also the no human support, chat bot only thing is frightening on various levels. It’s great until something actually goes wrong or the system deems you unfavorable.
I've had various issues with Revolut, but there is human support available (eventually) - if you type 'human' in the bot chat you get connected to an agent.
The fact that it's the only support channel available - no phone - is frustrating, and it's even worse that it's in-app only. It gets tiring trying to type up your problem on a phone keyboard, especially when it takes multiple chats to get resolved.
[+] [-] thesimon|6 years ago|reply
Transferwise Borderless seems to have a better business model with sane prices and not "everything free".
And Revolut still uses their e-money license instead of their proper Lithuanian banking license. Quite surprising.
[+] [-] juskrey|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kkoala|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kashyapc|6 years ago|reply
And I like it that they charge a decent price. I have a general allergy to "gratis services", especially in finance-related things.
[+] [-] khweroii|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tempotemporary|6 years ago|reply
My guess is that Revolut is doing just great in terms of revenue.
[+] [-] literallycancer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sschueller|6 years ago|reply
[2] First hand experience
[3] First hand experience trying to deal with customer support
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47751945
[5] https://old.reddit.com/r/Revolut/, https://www.20min.ch/finance/news/story/Betrueger-stehlen-Re...
[+] [-] klausjensen|6 years ago|reply
It is not clear to me if they would not tell me because they're not allowed to by law - or "just because".
Anyway - then the remaining balance on my account - they simply sent that back to the last payment that had been made => They sent my remaining balance to one of my clients!
Great API, great interface, great app, great prices - but I do not trust them any more, obviously.
[+] [-] rjzzleep|6 years ago|reply
The problem with Revolut that cannot be compared to other banks is that you will NEVER be able to speak to anyone that isn't a mindless support chat drone. This is really where the big difference is. The APP may be miles ahead of wells fargos or capital one and even N26 which in theory also has mainly chat based support etc. but if something goes wrong there there are channels to go. Here's it's just a huge black hole.
The only way I would ever recommend Revolut to anyone is to attach it to your own credit card and fill it on demand when you travel. I only ever fill the amount I want right now because the last time I transferred money to my account the account got flagged and I had an absolutely horrible experience with a bunch of conflicting statements from mindless drones that kept trying to trick me into giving them way more information than any bank in any country I've ever used ever has.
[+] [-] DoubleGlazing|6 years ago|reply
We never saw the money. When I raised the issue over chat they told me that all my referrals took too long to setup their account and make the first payments. They wouldn't tell me what the time limits was though. Every referral made their first payment within 30 days, so that doesn't seem too long for such an offer if you ask me.
At this point I was using it as my primary account so it wasn't like I was just signing up to get referral bonuses.
This experience made me think they weren't as trustworthy as they claimed to be.
[+] [-] YawningAngel|6 years ago|reply
In my experience at UK banks (trying to avoid embarrassing anyone by name here) what you're obligated to submit a SAR for is pretty broad and once you've SAR'd someone you almost always close their account with no reason given. So this experience will be reasonably common at every bank that does business in the UK
[+] [-] shawabawa3|6 years ago|reply
Transferring your entire balance to an arbitrary account though....yikes
[+] [-] smcl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanhunter|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jotm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] interfixus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angry_octet|6 years ago|reply
Revolut has been completely useless about this, and their chat teams are just there to waste your time.
Multiple currencies and cheap exchange are great when you travel a lot, and virtual credit cards and a nice spending UI are nice to haves. But nothing makes up for being jerked around for hours because their system is broken and they won't fix it.
Also, from an investment pov I think Apple Pay is going to crush them.
[+] [-] rsync|6 years ago|reply
I am interested in using virtual/disposable cards ...
Is it, in fact, correct that no "proper" US bank offers these ? What about paypal ?
What is the most stable, boring, financial services provider that offers virtual cards ?
Does anyone allow me to create a virtual card via API, the same way I can "create" a new phone number with Twilio ?
[+] [-] ro-_-b|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bkinnard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ferongr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Youden|6 years ago|reply
In Europe, the primary region for Revolut at the moment, cashlessness is highly variable. In a country like the UK or The Netherlands, DAU might be a reasonable measure but in say Germany, which is largely still cash-based, it's less relevant.
I'd say MAU or something like that makes more sense for a predominantly European financial service (Revolut is not a bank, it does not offer bank accounts).
[+] [-] jermaustin1|6 years ago|reply
I use another "neobank" called Simple in the US. It is not a primary account. It is how I divvy up allowance to my wife and I for our weekly fun money ($70/person/week). Can be spent on anything we want, but once it's gone its gone. I use mine for lunches, she packs a lunch and uses hers for shopping. We both save a certain percentage of that to pay for vacations.
Our typical average monthly balance is in the low 3 figures. Like currently I have $110 in savings and $45 in checking. I have no clue about how much my wife has, and that is the beauty of it.
[+] [-] ilikerashers|6 years ago|reply
I might be just outside the millennial target market though.
[+] [-] wtf1234|6 years ago|reply
And, on top of that, the customer support is nonexistent.
[+] [-] imnotreallynew|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yellowjellowjam|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] errrmaybenot|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RomanPushkin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chx|6 years ago|reply
http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2019/11/bitcoin-11-years-in.htm... and also https://www.aier.org/article/bitcoin-as-a-novel-financial-ga...
[+] [-] ascari|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdsdfe|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isusmelj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cosmodisk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jermaustin1|6 years ago|reply
Looking at their business pricing page, it looks like they are going to get into commercial lending, which could prove profitable. I don't know if it is VC-scale, though.
Most big, successful banks that have withstood the test of time have grown VERY slowly over nearly 200 years and acquired a lot of local banks along the way.
I don't recall all of the numbers but my brother (a small-town-bank vp) told me not that long ago that most small town banks will profit between $1M and $5M per year (5-10% return on equity). A small bank will usually have a few thousand customers.
So if Revolut has 10M customers (2000x bigger than a small town bank), and the customers are using Revolut like they would their small town banks, they should be profitable at some point.
[+] [-] mantap|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netcan|6 years ago|reply
Wework was silly because real estate is not software. The profits needed to eventually justify all that "burn-to-grow" money was never possible regardless of scale.
It's not an AdWords Vs Yahoo ads situation. The market leader isn't taking all the profits.
Banking isn't software either, but banking is banking... It's where the money is, lol.
Seriously, financial services is rich, rich pickings... Insurance, lending, business accounts, transfers....
A bank with low operating costs and millions of employees is worth a lot.
If it was a truly American company, I suspect the market cap would be way higher... UK investors are more cautious, and the company is a little dicey
[+] [-] nrki|6 years ago|reply
https://outline.com/9cuRRS
[+] [-] appleshore|6 years ago|reply
Also the no human support, chat bot only thing is frightening on various levels. It’s great until something actually goes wrong or the system deems you unfavorable.
[+] [-] whylo|6 years ago|reply
The fact that it's the only support channel available - no phone - is frustrating, and it's even worse that it's in-app only. It gets tiring trying to type up your problem on a phone keyboard, especially when it takes multiple chats to get resolved.