That is the usual rubbish. They (Revolut) make money on some transactions but lose money on others as different currency rates float up and down, so much of their loss is actually offset. If they wanted to treat their customers fairly they could overcharge and then refund any actual difference after the weekend. Instead they make money out of many customers and perhaps break even on others!
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Fair enough, let’s turn it around then. Given that both Revolut and Starling use CurrencyCloud, why doesn’t offer FOREX transfers over the weekend?
What advantage would that bring? It’s my understanding that the UK is a bit unusual, because in most other SEPA countries the national network and the SEPA one overlap almost completely. (ie all banks are connected to SEPA, and EU rules dictate that national transfers need to be treated the same as SEPA ones.)
Eg if I want to send money to Germany, what advantage would I have by not using SEPA?
Where SCTinst is available between remitting bank, any intermediary bank, and recipient bank, then there is no point (speed wise)
Where only SCT is available (not SCTinst) then a direct connection to the national network in the destination country would be quicker
The only other point is cost. While SEPA transfers are cheap from some bank’s (20p from Handelsbanken, £2.49 from Fidor, etc) historically many high street banks have charged £20-25 per SEPA transfer (I acknowledge some of these charges have been reduced now) so it may be the case that a direct connection to a foreign banking network can provide cheaper transfer costs than thru the regular international network such as SEPA.
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I get the 1st point. But not the 2nd. Surely, the fees are a policy decision, as evidenced by the massive difference in fees between banks. There would not be any inherent reason why SCT should be more expensive than a transfer through a national network, should there?
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Maybe not, but when we look at card payment networks for example, the national card payment schemes in Netherlands and Germany were always cheaper for merchants than the international networks despite using the same terminals and cables! So these things do happen, whatever the reason!
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There’s nothing “alleged” about it, it’s a fact that our original founding team were there before deciding to move into a new direction and found Monzo 
In fact, if you check out our latest episode of The Bulletin, streamed yesterday, we discuss those early days a little bit
With regards to the second part, we’re not a spiteful company at all. It’s not our style! Building an integration with TransferWise is something we’ve wanted to do for a while and we still want to do
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I sensed it the day TransferWise joined the forum…
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Aha I used “alleged” because I’m kind of in awe at finding out recently that Tom founded not only Monzo but also founded/cofounded GoCardless. That’s just serious entrepreneurship before age 35, so to have also worked at Starling came as a surprise too tbh 
I will check out the bulletin 
and agreed on all the rest!
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I’ve been using Transferwise for many years now. I’ve already been trialling their borderless account too recently, with a very positive feedback overall.
By partnering Monzo and Transferwise we could get the best of both worlds in one single place. That looks great to me! Looking forward to what could be a fruitful partnership for everyone.
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Sorry, what is the use-case for transferring money around the World? Is this just useful for people who have relatives to transfer money to or is there something more? Pretty sure I can send money to my Italian brother in law from my standard account. What am I missing?
Well, for when you need to send money abroad, or if you wish to receive money from abroad. Maybe you have friends/family abroad. Maybe you own property abroad. Maybe you need to pay a bill/invoice from abroad. Maybe you are a freelancer and have customers abroad who need to pay you. There are really a lot of use cases.
You probably can (if your standard account isn’t Monzo). However, most UK banks charge a fortune for the privilege. Transferwise is much much cheaper. (Same for receiving funds.) E.g. Barclays charge £15 to send a SEPA payment to Italy. Transferwise on the other hand charge about 0.4% for a payment to Italy.
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I wonder what the business case will be for Monzo choosing TransferWise over CurrencyCloud which Starling, Monese and Revolut use.
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If the reason those 3 only have a limited number of currencies is because they use CurrencyCloud then I’m glad Monzo are steering clear.
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How close is the partnership? Is there a date yet? Is there any workarounds for sending international payments in the meantime?
The workaround is to open a Transferwise account. You can use my referral link if you want (I can’t remember what benefits there are too using the link)
I most definitely won’t be using this service. I’ve been using Transferwise with no issues for the last 2 years. With Monzo - it took 2 weeks and confused forex exchange administrators to finally read their emails and start the return of my money. I now have to forfeit money because I have to pay for the reverse exchange fees.
Issue 1: You can’t send money to another country from your account into your own account using the description “gift” - well it was suppose to have been a gift for Mam’s birthday, well I guess not anymore.
Issue 2: Staff not reading emails.
Issue 3: How many emails does it take to explain to people that “I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS to a printer/scanner”, but that is the only way they will accept my forms - apparently according to the lady sending emails “we do not except digital signatures”.
I definitely won’t recommend this service. I’ll keep using Transferwise, at least that works.
My experience is the opposite. I used my Transferwise Borderless Account to send myself some money to my Monzo account ( 20 CAD ) and for some reason Transferwise deactivated my account and are holding all my money in my Borderless account hostage for 60 days. I would much prefer if Monzo would partner up with Currency Cloud and do their own money transfers like Revolut does, and abandon any connection with Transferwise.
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