Thanks @nanos. What about functionality. Does either do something the other doesn’t?
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That’s exactly what would like to find out
If you want to compare functionality than that’s a bit of an apple/oranges comparison. While Transferwise Borderless and Revolut functionality have a lot of overlap, they are massively different.
Historically, Transferwise started as a means to transfer money between countries, while Revolut started as a means to hold money in a (relatively small) number of different currencies, and to use the card for payments in those currencies.
To this day Transferwise is essentially geared towards exchanging currencies, while Revolut is essentially geard towards holding and spending money in a number of currencies. Most of the differences are a logical conclusion of this, and you’ll really need to look at what you want to do: (a) spend money in various currencies using a mastercard, (b) receive and hold various currencies, (c) or send money all over the world using wire transfers.
If your use case is (a) then I suspect there will be few differences in functionality. If your use case is (c) then the differences are bigger.
As such the list below is not exhaustive, and some things won’t make sense to your usecase, but here are my initial thoughts (I’d love for others to chime in here!):
- Revolut supports DD, peer to peer payments, cryptocurrencies, insurance, accepting card payments from non-revolut users using
rev.me(which confusingly lives at rev.money rather thanrev.me), and probably a lot more. - Transferwise has a much broader list of supported currencies.
- If you need wire transfers to/from countries outside the Eurozone, then Revolut is much more limited and expensive than Transferwise.
- In some currencies Revolut can only accept payment into the account from accounts in your own name. With Transferwise, there is no such limitation: If they accept a currency they’ll accept payment from anyone.
- Transferwise works on PC, Revolut only on mobile.
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For my main use case, it’s actually the opposite, but I appreciate that this is just one very specific case. Basically, I’m Australian, and the main use case I have for international transfers is to/from Australia. Revolut don’t offer local bank details in Australia, or debit card top ups in AUD, which means that any transfer to/from Australia is via SWIFT, for which Australian banks charge quite a lot ($35 in my case). TransferWise gives me an Australian sort code/account number, which makes it far cheaper unless I’m sending very large amounts.
For most other currencies, though, Revolut is definitely cheaper.
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Yes, I just noticed that, as I was thinking about a case were I needed to transfer to Egypt recently! Thanks for the heads up!
I guess it gets back to what I wrote in my other post: it depends a lot on use cases, and if you need wire transfers rather than mastercard spending, transferwise usually wins outside the Eurozone.
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Yeah, it’s worth checking what the sending/receiving bank will charge - there are definitely cases in which the fees charged by Revolut are lower than TransferWise, but the fees you have to pay to get your money to/from Revolut actually make it more expensive.
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Tagging onto the ongoing comparison here - Does anyone know if the Transferwise card is “online” or “offline”?
The Revolut one is “offline” meaning that it won’t work at pay at the pump terminals, or any terminal that is offline (I believe?)
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I’m not sure about online vs offline, but the TransferWise card is a MasterCard Debit card rather than pre-paid
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Great advice, chaps - thanks. 
except on weekends
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I think you mean Revolut is online only. Also that wouldn’t be the cause of AFDs not working as AFDs are online.
Unfortunately I don’t know if TransferWise allows offline authorisation or not. They did require a contact transaction before contactless would work which does indicate there are risk counters they’re playing with, but that could just be a legacy behaviour they’ve implemented for no good reason.
The type of product it is really should be online-only but that doesn’t mean it is!
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That’s exactly what I meant! Thanks.
Pardon my ignorance… AFD’s?
Automated Fuel Dispenser
(official name for pay-at-pump)
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Perfect - Thanks @anon44204028.
The bit I remembered about Revolut and Fuels pumps was from their website:
As your Revolut card is pre-paid, when you pay with it the merchant has to authorise that you have sufficient funds on your card to make the payment.
As some automatic petrol pumps and toll booths do not have online connectivity, you may find that you are unable to use your Revolut card at automatic petrol stations.
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Hey hey,
At the moment, we are not able to give 100% accurate waiting times as we are still in beta.
But we are inviting new people daily, so if you follow Sheena’s advice from above (making sure you have an open borderless account and at least one activated currency) it shouldn’t be longer than a week or so before you get your invite.
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Hi,
Of course, we don’t want to step on anyone’s toes here but one of the main advantages of the TransferWise borderless account and by extension our card is that we offer local account details.
This means that the USD, GBP, EUR and AUD accounts offered by TransferWise are actually in those countries and connected directly to the local payment schemes allowing you to receive money from anyone from these countries fee-free.
Of course, the benefits that come with the different services are completely dependant on what your needs are.
I hope this helps.
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I’d press like 10 times, if that didn’t cancel each other out! 
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The problem with AFDs is they often used to authorise a transaction for £1 and then change the amount after dispensing the fuel. Now AFDs are supposed to authorise the maximum vend amount e.g. £75, £99, £100 and then adjust the amount after. However (a) not all fuel companies have yet updated their systems to comply with the new Mastercard and Visa rules, (b) sometimes the new correct billing amount appears on your account before the original authorization is cancelled or drops off due to time. Therefore many people still have issues with AFDs particularly when they typically run a low balance and do small fuel topups or when they abroad on holidays where fuel, car rental, and hotel authorizations eat into the available funds on their account.
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Thanks for contributing @nanos.
Of course, we 100% agree, the benefits of the services are completely dependant on your usecase.
It’s also worth pointing out that TransferWise is working on building many more features as additions to our borderless accounts and cards.
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Very much looking forward to that!
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