The Lemon Fool

The EMI (pre-paid debit card) Revolut is getting a banking licence in more countries and I received an invitation to upgrade my account to 'Revolut Bank'.

I don't keep a huge sum in it and the only advantage I can see is the Europe-wide guarantee up to 100,000 euros (£85,000).

It's probably my favourite EMI card, instant transactions, useful abroad and the app is the best of the lot, but is there any advantage in upgrading to a fully-fledged bank? I don't like change (yes, I'm at THAT age ) and I'm quite happy as it is.

I just wonder if they're thinking about using this as a reason for introducing charges in the future.

Steve

I have a Revolut card to use for a few specific purposes, including the ability to get limited amounts of cash overseas - but even that is getting more difficult as the atm machines themselves introduce charges.

But to use Revolut as a full bank - no chance. The absence of any customer service team you can actually speak to kills that for me.

As for introducing charges, they have played around with the basic (free) card offering for a while so nothing would surprise me.

I certainly wouldn’t bother with one of these new ‘banks’. I can’t see what advantage there is?
NatWest pay me £8 a month to bank with them (charge £2 and give me back £10 rewards cash).
Their app is fine and does everything I want.
I can speak to someone competent easily, and have done so for example when a cheque I had sent to be paid in went missing.
OK they are expensive for overseas transfers but I just used Caxton fx when I needed to do that.

I also have a current account with Barclays in case of a problem with NW, and as a backup. That works fine too and their app also is good.

csearle wrote:

Moderator Message:
Unfortunately, because of the very litigious world in which we live most of this topic has been removed.

For the benefit of latecomers the deleted posts expressed the view that whilst Revolout was initially good, it has now left users feeling they have had bad customer service, not least because of the app-based communications.

The subject is: Revolut invitation to upgrade to their bank. Worth it?. Please could we stick with that rather than discussing the perceived negatives of the current product, otherwise such posts will have to be removed too. Thanks. - Chris

Thanks very much Chris. I've been away from the TLF for a week but I do remember that the thread was getting a bit silly. Just for the record, when I explained the problem very clearly and succinctly, Revolut acted very fast to put things right and within a day, everything was hunky dory, actually, probably a lot faster than with a bricks and mortar bank. There are some things I could say about Nationwide's customer service that would make even my Intel CPU blush!

I think that a lot of problems arise due to the use of AI bots, being used now by many sites, that attempt to help but can't. Then there are those people who also try to help but often ask for things that the customer has no idea how to do, either due to language fluency or the customer's lack of technical knowledge.

It also helps to be extremely polite but also very dry and bureaucratic. It's quite interesting how fast companies will move to assist you when you start throwing the laws about AML, KYC and privacy back at them.

Finally, the A.I. bots haven't yet been programmed with the British very dry and self-depreciating sense of humour, which is why I once got a warning from Facebook. Guilty as charged.

So.... I'm still a happy user of Revolut and any reasons why I should upgrade to their bank would be very welcome.

Steve

scrumpyjack wrote:I certainly wouldn’t bother with one of these new ‘banks’. I can’t see what advantage there is?
NatWest pay me £8 a month to bank with them (charge £2 and give me back £10 rewards cash).
Their app is fine and does everything I want.
I can speak to someone competent easily, and have done so for example when a cheque I had sent to be paid in went missing.
OK they are expensive for overseas transfers but I just used Caxton fx when I needed to do that.

I also have a current account with Barclays in case of a problem with NW, and as a backup. That works fine too and their app also is good.

My experience with RBS (same bank, different sign over the door) has been the complete opposite.

After a 45 minute wait in the queue at my branch to get to the one teller available that day, they simply could not grasp the fact that the mortgage I wanted to settle was not the same house as the address on my account. Mind-numbing stupidity. And they insisted there was no manager in the branch that day to see me to help me complete the transaction. So I changed banks.

Just a quick update.

It seems that we're all being moved into the Revolut bank whether we like it or not.

No worries, since I keep a fairly low balance with them. My reasoning was and still is, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

But I was reading some comments on other forums about the 100,000 euro guarantee. Although Revolut, like HSBC etc, is in loads of countries, the guarantee is issued by the original country, i.e. Lithuania for Revolut.

Someone pointed out the total cost to the Lithuanian state if Revolut were to go bust, and wondered if they could afford to honour the guarantee.

Things are getting interesting. One of the most well-known and respected EMIs, Transferwise - now Wise - have introduced a 0.9% charge on balances above 3000. Needless to say, the many clients who have been singing their praises for years, are now a bit miffed.

Things were so much easier when I was a student. I could always threaten to take my overdraft somewhere else.

Steve

stevensfo wrote:Someone pointed out the total cost to the Lithuanian state if Revolut were to go bust, and wondered if they could afford to honour the guarantee.

Sounds rather similar to the situation with the Icelandic banks a dozen years or so ago, and how everything was going well and everything protected by Iceland’s guarantee - until it wasn’t.