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Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

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Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#51

Post by netcan »

thefounder wrote: post #39
sschueller wrote: post #4

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 froze…

>> Revolut is predatory and walking on the line of legality. Like most of the banks, right? [0] I find their chat communication quite great. After all you can't send documents over a phone call. >> Many people have had their accounts frozen or even money stolen. Is there a bank that doesn't do that? If you want to own your money use cash or digital/crypto https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-usa/hsbc-draws-line-..…

>>Like most of the banks, right?

Yes and no. "Predatory" can mean different things.

Most banks are super-cautious, day-to-day. They can be predatory in certain way, taking advantage of customers with things like outrageous overdraft fees, exchange rates and such. They can be feckless, accumulating long-tail, systemic risk with Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose games.^

The old banks are bad in lots of ways, but actually very safe in terms of big individual risk.

Revolut is feckless and/or predatory in a more startup-ey way. They'll "bet the house" on growth. They're also prone to the start-upy customer service "minimalism" math. Customer service is hard, expensive, and generally follows the pareto principle (80/20). IE, most customers don't need much support. Say 8% do. Those 8% are not profitable, and Revolut is willing to (even prefers to) lose them as customers. So, if something goes wrong... you could be in shit.

They also just plain takes risks, like. Last years, their CFO walked out suddenly in response to risk.

All this is not unlike Google and many other companies. I have had downright awful experiences with paypal. For a bank though, this is scary.

I use Revolut. The service is convenient for me, but I won't keep much money in it or be dependant on them for anything critical.

^ HIWTYL - Pronounced Hightail

Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#52

Post by YawningAngel »

klausjensen wrote: post #38

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…

https://www.icpa.org.uk/portal/money_laundering/tipping_off

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

Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#54

Post by lawn »

peteretep wrote: post #24
sschueller wrote: post #4

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 froze…

What’s dubious about their crypto service? They’re offering a way to give yourself simple exposure to crypto without a wallet. As the primary use of crypto right now is speculation, seems ideal.

That you're not actually buying cryptocurrencies with it. It's just an IOU from Revolut, with very dubious protection. With the unregulated part of crypto I would bet you'd have absolutely zero protection if Revolut went out of business or just closed your account for some unknown reason.

Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#55

Post by ValentineC »

Kkoala wrote: post #29
romasato wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what hidden fees are you referring to? As far as I can tell, all the fees are explained on their website and in the app.

On the website it just says things like "No fee ATM withdrawals up to €200 per month", but what about after 200€?? I found a help section that is vague too saying "We can provide an estimate of the potential fees...", so not very transparent. Transferwise you can see/calculate on the frontpage what the fee will be.

> On the website it just says things like "No fee ATM withdrawals up to €200 per month", but what about after 200€??

TransferWise debit card's landing page [1] doesn't have the ATM fee either. Their pricing page [2] does.

I was able to find Revolut's pricing page [3], which includes the ATM fee, with a simple search.

[1] https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/card

[2] https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/pricing

[3] https://www.revolut.com/legal/fees

Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#57

Post by rjzzleep »

klausjensen wrote: post #38

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…

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.

Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#58

Post by GeneralTspoon »

hkjlhoiuwer wrote: post #28
sschueller wrote: post #4

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 froze…

They are very convenient though. And they have the best FX rates for those who care. I only keep a minimum amount on Revolut (<$200), and only top up as needed. This way I don't particularly care if my money gets lost.

Monzo/Starling/TransferWise all have as good an FX rate last time I checked.

Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#59

Post by nottorp »

randunel wrote: post #35
fauria wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide links or any other kind of source for these statements? Customers would be mostly concerned about the fifth one, probably: Many people have had their accounts frozen or even money stolen .

Revolut also block the accounts of members of a certain political party ("PSD") in Romania, "blocking" (stealing) their money, but only if customers admit to being a socialist party member. Here's a screenshot with the questions https://universul.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/revolut-psd... Transcripted from the Revolut app: Have you ever held any of the following positions? Select all that apply - Member - Speciali…

Lol that's not a socialist party, it's a criminal organization. The specific reference to Teleorman is probably because of the ongoing EU investigation concerning fraud with european funds.

Considering they're extremely overzealous with money laundering related freezes, it makes sense for them to avoid doing bussiness with the mob in the first place.

Re: Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

#60

Post by literallycancer »

seanhunter wrote: post #50
klausjensen wrote: post #38

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…

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.

Don't they have a Latvian? banking license these days?
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