Setup

Having moved to Ireland, one of the first things I needed to do was to setup a bank account for myself and a joint account with my partner. My requirements when it comes to banking are:

fully featured mobile app, no need for internet banking
easy to setup via the app
support via the app, happy with asynchronous support
support joint accounts
regulated bank, money is protected

In Australia, I found the following banks met the above requirements:

I used Up as my daily bank (although they did not support joint accounts) and ANZ Plus as their interest rates on savings were pretty competitive.

Revolut is popular in the UK and Ireland, so I thought I’d give them a go…

Setting up from start to finish took ~10 minutes, there is a need for an ID check where my passport was scanned and they allowed for the deferral of 30 days to provide the Personal Public Service (PPS) number - which was handy, as I hadn’t had mine issued yet.

I opted for a free Revolut account and paid the €7.99 for the card, I don’t really want a card, however I assume I will find myself needing it in places that Tap-and-Go is not supported. I personally do not mind being charged for the card to be issued, this shows Revolut are tightly coupling the expense of card issuance back to the customers who opt for this. This is the first time a bank has given me this option, both Up and ANZ Plus post a card out without asking if I want one.

The card was ready to use well in advance of An Post delivering it to me of course, courtesy of Apple Pay….another nice touch.

Joint account

Repeating the above process for my partner and we were ready to setup a joint account, this was a very straight forward process. You basically “invite” the other account holder to join the joint account, you can invite them using their mobile number (that’s tied to the Revolut account) or their Revolut identifier (an @ tag that Revolut creates upon account opening).

Pockets

Another nice feature is the ability to “stash” money away into separate accounts, this we found useful to hold money for the kids when people gave them cash for Christmas.

Day to day use

I was not overly surprised by Revolut knocking it out of the park with their onboarding experience, I’ve heard good things and I’ve seen banks in Australia replicate this model well.. I’m still impressed to this day that I could receive API notifications via Up by connecting to the Up API, perhaps a gimmick, but one I appreciated. What has surprised me about Revolut, their market penetration in Ireland is unbelievable, they have upwards of 2 million customers, which is approaching 50% of the adult population.

Real time payments

Revolut’s sheer customer numbers has resulted in a network effect, where people in Ireland think that Revolut is the only way to make a real time payment. Being new to Ireland, I’m not sure of the infrastructure behind bank to bank payments, but there does exist a real time bank to bank mechanism called SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. However not all European banks participate, one notable exception is Bank of Ireland, their customer numbers are not known but they do have a 21% market share in Ireland. It’s hard to blame people for opening a Revolut account so they can move money instantly, with such fragmented participation in the real time payment schemes in Europe, it’s inevitable that people will latch on to the bank that offers the least friction in that area.

Interestingly, I have encountered people who think Revolut is only able to transfer money between Revolut accounts, this is not true as Revolut hold a full banking licence, albeit Revolut operate via their European banking licence rather than their Irish e-money licence.

I did manage to convince a person selling a car that I could transfer the money via Revolut in front of him, rather than get a Bank Draft which is basically a bank cheque in Australia. Not a form of payment I want to use for making a purchase as it would lock in the price upfront.

Criticism

I have heard some negatives about Revolut, one being they aren't a bank and another they don't make any money, the first is clearly not true…the latter appears to be somewhat accurate, Revolut are certainly not making the profits of other banks. However, as a consumer, Revolut being growth focused does not concern me. They are operating a European banking licence and they are growing, which tells me that my money is safe and I won’t be needing to find a new bank anytime soon.

Final thoughts

The experience of their mobile app is world-class and Revolut is now on the hunt of mortgage staff to launch that business, having done some brief research of Irish mortgages - this is certainly an area that a digital first experience will add a huge amount of value.

Revolut