Revolut Review: How do its mobile app, card and current account stack up?
Revolut Review: How do its mobile app, card and current account stack up?
Good for
- Holding up to 30+ different currencies
- Fast and easy to register; no credit check
- Can use overseas without fees
- 24-hour customer service
- Competitive travel and device insurance
Bad for
- Currency exchange and overseas transfers and spending subject to 0.5-1.0% mark-up
- Free cash withdrawals are limited to £200 a month with Standard account; 2% thereafter
- No direct debits, overdrafts, credit cards or interest-paying savings accounts available
- No branches, which can put off those who prefer face-to-face customer service.
The guidance on this site is based on our own analysis and is meant to help you identify options and narrow down your choices. We do not advise or tell you which product to buy; undertake your own due diligence before entering into any agreement. Read our full disclosure here.
Revolut, while not a bank, is a financial tech company that is challenging traditional banks with their offering of digital banking services. Revolut offers some great options for those who travel frequently, as it offers overseas spending and international payments and money transfers with transparent fees visible in the Revolut app. If you’re planning a holiday abroad, Revolut allows you to move the cash you need to your Revolut account in the currency you need (up to 30+ currencies).
This review is for general information purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. If you have any questions about your personal circumstances please seek professional and independent advice. Revolut is not a financial adviser.
Revolut Review
These days there’s a lot of overlap between the various fintech service companies. However, Revolut stands out as having one of the widest range of features in the mobile sector—including virtual cards, fee-free bank transfers in other currencies, an auto exchange feature and cryptocurrency trading. Launched in 2015, Revolut now has more than 25 million customers and completes more than 330 million transactions per month worldwide. In addition to buying a travel insurance policy, sorting currency is one of the necessary pre-travel tasks—one that can be made easier with Revolut.
Revolut offers four types of personal account: Standard, Plus, Premium and Metal. The Standard account doesn't come with a monthly fee, while the Premium account costs £6.99 a month and the Metal costs £12.99 per month. But fees and limits might apply depending on plan type, weekend vs weekday, capped amount (e.g. withdrawals), potential fees charged by partner banks etc. You can check a product’s T&Cs for details. Here are a few interesting features you get with each account (for full information see their site):
| Revolut accounts | Standard | Plus | Premium | Metal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Free | £2.99/month | £6.99/month | £12.99/month |
| Debit card | Yes (delivery charged) | Yes (delivery free) | Yes (free express delivery) | Yes (free express delivery) |
| UK GBP account | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| EUR account with IBAN | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ATM withdrawals | £200/m or 5x, 2% after (min £1) | £200/m, 2% after (min £1) | £400/m, 2% after (min £1) | £800/m, 2% after (min £1) |
| Payments (sending money to other Revolut users, making payments locally or within SEPA) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Other payments | Fee applies | Fee applies | Fee applies | Fee applies |
| Cashback on card payments | none | none | none | 0.1% within Europe and 1% outside Europe |
| Fee-free foreign exchange | £1,000/month (0.5% after) | £1,000/month (0.5% after) | unlimited | unlimited |
Note, T&Cs apply. For example, cashback on the Metal card is limited to £12.99 per monthly billing cycle. And third party providers may change an ATM withdrawal fee and also weekend fees may apply; FX and card payments may also be subject to weekend markups.
Quick Takeaway: As with all financial decisions, whether or not Revolut makes sense for you will depend on your needs and what you’re planning to use Revolut for. But if you travel a lot and regularly need different currencies, Revolut is definitely worth a look.
Summary of Revolut’s Personal Accounts
Revolut also offers a business account, which offers multi-currency current accounts and pre-paid business cards.
Key Features of Revolut’s Standard (Free) Account
Opening a Standard account with Revolut will give you a:
- UK GBP-denominated current account
- EUR-denominated account with an IBAN number
- ATM/contactless debit card
As well as the usual things you’d expect from a current account, like ATM cash withdrawals and making direct payments to other UK bank accounts, Revolut’s Standard account also offers other features such as potentially fee-free international money transfers, fee-free overseas spending and access to cryptocurrencies.
Getting Started with Revolut
Once you’ve decided you’d like to try Revolut, signing up is very simple. You just need to download the app and register. You don’t need a proof of address and there are no credit checks, which speeds up the process. It also means you don’t need to live in the UK to open an account, but you do need to register a UK address.
You will, however, need to verify your identity by taking a picture of both yourself and a valid ID document. And once you’ve signed up, you can then request a contactless Revolut card to use for ATM cash withdrawals and debit payments.
The Revolut app is simple and easy to use. Once your account is set up, you can:
- Use it as a UK current account: you’ll receive a UK account number and sort code. You can withdraw cash at ATMs, make contactless payments, set up recurring payments, and use both Apple Pay and Google Pay.
- Make international payments: with the Revolut app you can transfer money to 30+ countries without fees at the real exchange rate (that’s the same rates banks give to each other).
- Spend overseas without fees: you can use your card to make purchases in over 150 currencies. All overseas spending is charged at the real exchange rate. No traditional bank offers this.
- Hold different currencies: you can hold balances in 30+ currencies within the app.
- Pay friends: you can pay other people with ease or use the ‘split bill’ feature to divide a purchase between a group.
- View your spending habits: using analytics, you can see all of your spending, categorised by type of transaction, by merchant or by country.
- Freeze your card and set spending limits: you can easily lock a card if you lose it, unlock it if you find it again, set monthly spending limits and enable additional security.
- Save money: you can put money aside through regular payments or round up your spare change with Revolut’s Vaults. You won’t earn any interest, but this feature can be helpful for saving towards any short-term goals. You can also set up a Group Vault with your friends and family and save for a common goal, such as a holiday.
- Add phone and travel insurance: at the touch of a button, you pay by the day, and the rates are low.
- Buy cryptocurrency: customers have access to 100+ different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. We’ll look at this in more detail below.
Revolut Fees
The Standard Revolut account comes with a few fees:
- Weekend currency mark-up: if you make an overseas card payment, money transfer or an ATM withdrawal during a weekend, you’ll be charged a mark-up of 0.5% for 15 major currencies and 1% for the others. The reason is that the real exchange rate is always fluctuating and may not be the same on a Monday as it was on the previous Friday. Even though the 0.5% and 1% fees are quite low, there is an easy way to avoid having to pay them: if you know you’ll be travelling or will be sending money abroad or making an overseas payment over the weekend, then you can simply exchange the currency in advance on a week day and you’ll avoid the fee. As far as we understand, 'weekend' means 5 PM New York time on Friday to 6 PM New York time on Sunday.
- Bank transfers: you can do this without any fees, at the real exchange rate, in 30+ currencies.
- Cash withdrawals: you can make ATM withdrawals of up to £200 per month or 5 withdrawals, whichever comes first, with no fee. After this limit there is a 2% fee.
- No overdraft: it’s not possible to go into the red. If a purchase exceeds your available funds, the transaction will be declined.
Using Revolut Overseas
One of Revolut’s most attractive features is that you can spend without any fees at the real exchange rate in more than 150 currencies.
We’ve all been hit with transaction fees or hidden charges when spending abroad, not to mention been given an uncompetitive exchange rate. That’s because most traditional banks will either charge you a fee to use your card abroad, or they give you a poor exchange rate, or both. When a bank advertises that they don’t charge for currency exchange, you can be sure they’ll still make money by giving you an uncompetitive rate.
Revolut doesn’t do this, which is why it’s a great feature for those who travel a lot. Using it abroad is much like using it in the UK. Don’t forget, though, that free ATM withdrawals are limited (from £200 to £800 a month, depending on the account)—after which you’ll be charged a 2% fee, no matter which country you’re in.
Revolut’s Auto-Exchange Feature
With Revolut you can convert Sterling into another currency very easily. Just a couple of taps and it’s done. If you’re planning to go abroad, there’s also a useful feature that tracks the exchange rate and waits for it move in your favour. So you can use the app to choose the currency you want to change your money into, then set a target exchange rate. Once it’s reached, Revolut will automatically convert your money. If you use it correctly (and assuming the market moves in your favour!), you may be able to get a better rate on your foreign currency without making much effort.
You can also do it the same thing with cryptocurrencies (see below). The only limitation Revolut imposes is that if the market is volatile, it will stop the conversion—it’s allowed to move by up to 0.75% above or below the target for regular currencies, and by up to 5% for cryptocurrencies.
How to Top Up Your Revolut Balance
Linking another bank account with your Revolut account lets you top up instantly and easily. The first time you do it, you’ll need to enter card details for your other bank account, including all the usual card details, including your address. Then you can top up your Revolut account without whatever amount you choose, and the funds will be transferred instantly.
Once you’ve linked your Revolut account to another bank account like this, you can then choose the automatic top-up feature. This means that the app will automatically top up your Revolut account balance from your main bank account whenever your Revolut balance drops below a certain amount.
Revolut’s Virtual Card
The virtual card is a great idea that Revolut offers to make making online transactions safer. Whether it’s buying from Amazon, Deliveroo or paying your monthly Netflix subscription, the idea is that it’s safer than using your physical card.
You can freeze your virtual card at any time, and you can also set monthly spending limits to stay within your budget and to prevent card fraud. In addition, you can delete the virtual card every few months, making it harder for fraudsters to steal your details and clone your card.
One of Revolut’s stand-out features is its 'disposable' virtual card. It’s only available with Premium accounts, though. After every online transaction Revolut deletes your virtual card and gives you a new one. According to Revolut, this feature has reduced fraud by 30%.
Is Revolut safe?
Revolut has to hold all client funds in a 'segregated account'. This means that customer funds are kept separate from Revolut’s own finances and cannot be touched by Revolut. So, even if something were to happen to Revolut as a company, your money will be unaffected.
No FSCS Deposit protection: Revolut is an e-money institution. Until Revolut receives a full UK banking licence (which it apparently hopes to do), funds held are not protected by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which protects deposits up to a maximum of £85,000. However, the fact that customer funds are segregated should provide comfort.
App is fingerprint or password protected: Revolut’s smartphone app is protected by a password or fingerprint ID. You can immediately freeze or unfreeze your card in the app if it’s been misplaced, lost or stolen. Add further control by turning online, ATM and contactless payments on or off according to your preferences.
What is Revolut Cryptocurrency?
In 2017, Revolut became the first challenger bank to let customers buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from within its app.
With Revolut, customers have access to 100+ different cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Dogecoin and many more.
You can exchange one of the base currencies in the app for one of its crypto options. Real-time cryptocurrency charts show you current rates and prices. Revolut does charge a fee for crypto transactions (with a min per transaction) for Standard and Plus users. And crypto exchanges count towards your exchange fair usage limit if you are a Standard or Plus customer.
As always, we want to remind you of the risks involved when buying or selling crypto, and that the prices of crypto can be very volatile. Your capital is at risk.
Does Revolut Have Good Reviews?
Reviews for Revolut seem to be excellent. Based on over 130,000 Trustpilot reviews, 75% of them give it a top-ranked “Excellent” rating, for an overall rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars.
At the lower end of the scale, the one-star reviews seem mostly to involve customer accounts being locked because of compliance checks on the source of funds being transferred into Revolut accounts. Of course, no one likes their money to be locked up, but there’s not much any of us can do when banks and financial institutions are required by law to complete these checks.
Revolut vs the Competition
Revolut vs. Wise
Revolut has a lot of similarities with money transfer specialist Wise, especially with the latter’s borderless account. Revolut has greater coverage in the number of currencies you can send money in and also hold in your account. But Wise typically charges lower fees. It used to be that Wise had an advantage in one area over Revolut, in that Revolut could not receive payments in USD but Wise could—however, Revolut can now accept USD payments into a UK account.
Another key difference is that Wise is available on both its website and mobile app, while Revolut is only available through a mobile app.
Quick takeaway: if you want to use a website or are most concerned with fees, you may prefer Wise; if you want access to more currencies, then Revolut may be the better bet.
Revolut vs. Monese
Monese is another challenger bank, and there are many similarities with Revolut. Monese has recently changed its terms to make ATM withdrawals the same as Revolut’s. In fact, there’s very little to choose between their fee-free services.
One key difference between the two is that Revolut requires a UK address to sign up, whereas Monese does not.
Quick takeaway: Revolut and Monese are quite similar. But you don’t have a UK address, Monese may be more suitable.
Note: This review is for general information purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. If you have any questions about your personal circumstances please seek professional and independent advice. Revolut is not a financial adviser.