British financial technology company Revolut has been in the news frequently in recent months, and I couldn’t agree more!
The firm, which provides mobile app-based current accounts as an alternative to physical banks, has been referred to by some as a “tech superstar”.
Why is Revolut so controversial?
But before that, let’s understand what Revolut is?
What is Revolut?
Revolut offers a range of digital banking services in a mobile app targeted at young, tech-savvy users, including:
- Transferring money abroad in 29 currencies
- A pre-paid debit card that enables cash machine withdrawals in 120 countries
- A cryptocurrency exchange allowing users to convert currencies into Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash or XRP
- Vaults for budgeting and saving money
- Mobile phone and overseas medical insurance
Users get a free UK current account and a free euro IBAN account with standard accounts. There are no fees on exchanging in 24 currencies, up to £5,000 a month. Also, you can withdraw up to £200 a day and up to £3,500 a day on Revolut Metal plan, from cash machines.
Revolut also offers monthly subscription plans with higher thresholds for no fees, as well as instant access to crypto-currencies, cashback, cash withdrawal, travel and concierge service.
Why has Revolut been in the headlines so much?
In February, Revolut launched an advertising campaign featuring an ad that highlighted the number of people who ordered a takeaway meal for one on Valentine’s Day in 2018.
The ad, which asked, “You ok, hun?” sparked a backlash on Twitter. Revolut has done “shaming” single people and being both “intrusive” and “tone-deaf”.
In February, the Telegraph said that in the summer of 2018, Revolut disabled a system designed to automatically halt transactions to individuals who matched against sanctions lists.
Sanctions lists contain the names of individuals whose assets have been frozen and include those connected with chemical weapons violations as well as members of the Islamic State.
The system flagged the transaction for inspection but still allowed it to go through.
Revolut told the BBC: “At no point did Revolut stop checking transactions for sanctions compliance last year. Nor was there any failure in our sanctions screening procedures.”
Our Experience with the Revolut
Our personal and business experience with Revolut is scary, as they blocked our paying accounts. It’s crazy but suddenly, they deactivated our company account that was connected to the website CryptoUpdate.io
With this blocking activity, We cannot pay salaries to our employees. Currently, we have 2 employees from Ukraine. We trying to support the Ukrainian people somehow by giving them jobs.
Back to the story, Revolut just deactivated our company accounts and blocked all payments and cards.
Moreover, the company account was live for 4 months and everything was working perfectly, but today we just got blocked without any reason. We tried to contact Revolut support by chat to know their narrative or at least to explain why they deactivated the account, but they refuse to answer this question. Even we asked for the contact of the top manager or director or at least asked them to contact us back by phone or by email, but they refused this request as well.
So, now we can confidently say that Revolut and Revolut Business is not a bank and does not comply with European financial laws. It’s just a cheap finance company that is doing what they want, and it’s against the EU laws as they can deactivate the account without any reason and block payments, transfers, cards, exchanges etc.
Furthermore, they left us with the only option to exchange money for the company’s local currency (even not to euro) and send it via bank transfer within 60 days.
Not Suitable for Anyone!
People who are reading this on the Crypto Update are highly NOT RECOMMENDED to use Revolut for Personal or for Business purposes. The Behavior of Revolut is not politically correct and is against the financial EU laws.
To conclude, we can say that Revolut set up a monopoly and did what they want. Opening an account with Revolut is highly risky, as they can block it at any time without any reason. Clients cannot trust Revolut.
Imagine that you went on a vacation to another country and your card was suddenly blocked.
