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Revolut raises $500M at a $5.5B valuation

techcrunch.com

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

#61

Post by throwaway9d0291 »

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…

Please don't list things like this without making at least a 10-second effort to provide sources, it makes it very difficult to engage.

> Unfair/illegal employment practices.

Source? Elaboration? Best I could find is [0] which certainly looks bad but I can't find any references to court cases or employment authorities cracking down (and the UK has pretty decent worker protection).

> Dubios crypto service (you can buy and sell but there is no way to transfer in or out)

What you call "Dubios", I call an easy way for people to play around with crypto without figuring out all the wallets and whatnot. It also avoids a lot of the AML issues around crypto.

> Keeping a firewall between customers and company by only allowing communication via app chatbot

You write the word "human" in the chat and you pretty much instantly get put through to a human. There's no firewall here.

> Accusations of money laundry.

I think you're referring to the events leading up to [1]. Revolut wasn't accused of money laundering, it was reported that one of its systems had been disabled and this may have led to some activity going unnoticed. The CEO later claimed that the system was disabled but an older system was put in its place [2]. The newer system wasn't performing as expected so they reverted it.

This is very different to say HSBC, which was found to be actively participating in money laundering.

Also, "accusations" are just that, accusations. Most societies operate under a presumption of innocence rather than presumption of guilt.

[0]: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/revolut-cfo-peter-ohiggins...

[2]: https://blog.revolut.com/let-me-sec-the-record-straight/

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

#62

Post by literallycancer »

thesimon wrote: post #6

Quite impressed with the valuation. 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.

There's less reporting requirements for e-money IIRC.

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

#63

Post by appleshore »

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.

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

#64

Post by whylo »

appleshore wrote: post #63

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.

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

#65

Post by sschueller »

throwaway9d0291 wrote: post #61
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…

Please don't list things like this without making at least a 10-second effort to provide sources, it makes it very difficult to engage. > Unfair/illegal employment practices. Source? Elaboration? Best I could find is [0] which certainly looks bad but I can't find any references to court cases or employment authorities cracking down (and the UK has pretty decent worker protection). > Dubios crypto service (you can buy…

> Unfair/illegal employment practices.

Requiring people to bring you new clients before you get employed and not compensating them is illegal in many places. Maybe not the UK.

> Dubios crypto service

They don't disclose that you can not transfer in or out.

> Keeping a firewall between customers and company by only allowing communication via app chatbot

I had to deal with this. If your app doesn't work you are screwed. There is no email, no phone.

> Accusations of money laundry.

Fair enough.

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

#66

Post by namdnay »

kasperni wrote: post #30
dx034 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found a TechCrunch article[1], is that what you're referring to? Hadn't heard of these issues before (but also never tried to apply there). [1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...

-------------- She did a 30-minute job interview over Google Hangouts with the London-based head of business development, Andrius Biceika, and was immediately told she had passed to the next round, which would involve a small test. “The surprise came when I received the task and it asked me to get the company as many clients as possible, with each one depositing €10 into the app,” says Laura. The instructions on the…

To play devils advocate, it was a business development position... so it’s a bit like asking a developer to do a homework exercise no?

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

#67

Post by DoubleGlazing »

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…

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.

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

#68

Post by superpermutat0r »

Kkoala wrote: post #13
thesimon wrote: post #6

Quite impressed with the valuation. 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.

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.

I also like the fact that if I have lets say $100 in various currencies (10 different currencies) and try to pay for something valued $95 in some other currency, Revolut will not make the purchase but Transferwise will autoconvert between the currencies and make the purchase. Revolut only autoconverts if one currency has $95 equivalent.

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

#69

Post by qaq »

ro-_-b wrote: post #53

There valuation is currently almost 1/3 of the Deutsche Bank market capitalization. Just for your reference.. VC & tech are in a big bubble

Deutsche Bank Total assets €1.34 trillion Market Cap 19.91B

JPM Total assets US$2.687 trillion Market Cap 414.52B

There is a reason Deutsche Bank has such a low valuation

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

#70

Post by charlesu »

namdnay wrote: post #66
kasperni wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-------------- She did a 30-minute job interview over Google Hangouts with the London-based head of business development, Andrius Biceika, and was immediately told she had passed to the next round, which would involve a small test. “The surprise came when I received the task and it asked me to get the company as many clients as possible, with each one depositing €10 into the app,” says Laura. The instructions on the…

To play devils advocate, it was a business development position... so it’s a bit like asking a developer to do a homework exercise no?

It's like asking a developer to build out a feature that will be put into production. For free.
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