Revolut chat

Depends what you define as “full time”?

Personally, I use Monzo as a main prepaid card for all day to day spending. I use Revolut for bank transfers, SEPA payments and crypto. Complimentary use cases for me.

Generally speaking “250,000 are daily active users, roughly 400,000 are weekly active users”.

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Revolut full time in so much as it’s the only card I carry - multi currency and card security options are second to none imo. I retain a legacy bank for joint account and a further account for Google Pay. I have yet to find a financial service provider/bank that fits all my needs, doubt that such a beast exists.

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Apologies if the first has been posted before, I know it has been referenced, but I find it insightful insofar as getting a flavour for management style/culture for the different cos.

This more recent interview from web summit with Kit Eaton (no relation!).

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The tension in the first interview between them all was palpable :weary: The interviewer didn’t help… typical case of a moderator imposing his own views onto the panel with his leading questions and slight condescension.

Key lesson from 2nd interview: speed kills!

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Yes @Theodore, bordering on condescension…

I don’t use Revolut, though I did explore their business plan during their funding rounds, so I cannot vouch for their issues around product and customer service. But FWIW, it strikes me as a business that swaps a clear and proper strategy for either rushing to market what their competitors are already or planning to offer (N26 Metal) and jumping on the various hype trains (cryptocurrency), to use a couple of easy examples. For now, it seems to be working but I can’t help but think of boo.com. As @tom alludes to, their cash burn must be astro.

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Revolut are profitable and is now Europe’s fastest fintech to reach Unicorn status, so it’s clear their business strategy is working.

For me, Revolut are a triple threat. They’ve got both Regular and Business customers, a developing marketplace, and a truly global reach.

They’ve taken caluculated risks that are reaping rewards, whereas I get the feeling Monzo is playing it (too) safe.

P.S. Although crypto went through a major mainstream hype cycle, it’s a niche in finance and one that will likely be legitimised. Furthermore, it makes sense for Revolut to offer them because Revolut specialises in currency so it isn’t a big leap to include cryptocurrency in that product offering.

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Agree your comment about the interviewer. I think the Revolut CEO’s English, although fluent, puts people off owing to his heavy accent. He is also more reserved but if you can overlook that, he comes across well.

The second interviewer seems a bit thick and/or uninformed.

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Indeed, he’s just very direct and curt in his responses. A no bs kind of guy which I imagine in a cutthroat fast paced industry is what’s needed for results.

I’m inclined to agree on your second point :joy:

Thanks for posting, I hadn’t seen the 2nd interview before. I did see the first one and immediately got a Revolut account. The behaviour of the other 2 guys was cringe-worthy.

How was their behaviour cringe-worthy?

Pretty sure they aren’t profitable yet… I certainly wouldn’t expect them to be at this stage given the growth trajectory and probable burn rate. They have stated that were at breakeven however, impressive in itself. But that’s without disclosing revenue (just transaction volume) and any sort of P/L - which is of course understandable.

On unicorn status, it certainly is an impressive valuation, but until that value is realised, it’s just on paper for now - so I’m not sure that’s necessarily a marker of the success of their strategy. I think active customers, transaction values and AUA might be better measurements, since their goal at this stage is growth.

I think the threat is contingent on them securing further equity capital, so with DST’s deep pockets and track record, I think you’re certainly on to something here. Though in the current climate, some might not be too keen on DST’s involvement (!)

I totally understand the sentiment - at times it feels frustrating when we see other challenger fincos announcing new features and products on an almost weekly basis BUT if i’ve correctly understood what Monzo are really trying to create, specifically with Marketplace, the others will seem positively legacy. I am open minded, but if they can really pull it off, it will be game changing. And I think the magic will be almost intangible. Ok, where’s the hyperbole off switch?! :rofl:

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You’re right and what I meant was break-even (which I’ve posted somewhere in this thread before but I can’t be bothered to scroll up to find it).

In any case, being the first U.K. fintech to break-even and fastest EU fintech to Unicorn status are both undeniable tangible achievements in my books. These are actual achievements unlike those of highly gamed “Best Bank” awards that customers vote on (Think Starling came out on top last).

Also, as of now that Unicorn value is real. This is the private value of Revolut that investors came to based on info we are and are not privy to. At the end of the day, the “realised” value I suspect you speak of will only matter when the company goes public and until then it’s premature to be arbitrarily deciding what does & does not matter.

I agree they’re in growth phase which makes their achievements all the more impressive. Personally, I’m really in the camp that Revolut and Monzo are compliments, not competitors, thus I want them both to succeed. I personally think Revolut are streets ahead in terms of speed and innovation, but again this is a cultural/strategic difference that is fine.

I’ve listened to Tom Broomfield’s vision for Monzo and it’s marketplace in various podcasts. Whilst I buy into it, I can’t be convinced that the length of time it’s taking will imbue so much superiority in it that it will give them a longlasting competitive advantage over Revolut/Starling and the incumbents.

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Anybody noticed how Revolut Vaults is arguably better than Coin Jar even though it was launched some time afterwards?

Straightaway with Vaults you can not only round up spare change, but you can do it in another currency including crypto. They’re likely to even institute Charity Vaults which many in this community have asked for in some shape or form:
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Furthermore, they’re running this prize:
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https://blog.revolut.com/win-a-1-000-holiday-with-revolut-vaults/

This is an example of an overtake. Monzo still haven’t taken individual Coin Jar transactions out of the main feed yet despite immediate feedback on it. What will really be telling is if Revolut manage to even do this before Monzo get round to it.

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That they launched it in a similar timeframe probably just means that they both worked on it at roughly the same time. The fact that multi-currency support is included is, in my view, a no-brainer, and anything less would be disappointing for a company that brands itself as a global, pan-European banking alternative offering a multi-currency account…

I’ll take the multicurrency point, but I’m not convinced by the timing point. The delay between both launches was quite stark & they’re already thinking of adding Charity Vaults.

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Monzo’s launched in March whereas Revolut’s launched in April. That’s a one month difference - which is peanuts if you consider time needed to design, develop and test it - oh, and testing is not just the functional part of it. They also have to test non-functional aspects, like performance and security. So testing could easily have taken 3 werks, leaving leaving us one week to conduct user research, design the UI, and implement all this in code. And the stuff you see on the app represent maybe 5-30% of the required effort. Most of heavy-lifting happens in the background.

TL;DR: Implementing vaults in they did in just 4 weeks? No way.

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I didn’t say it was done in 4 weeks, but more my point is Revolut have managed to make a better feature in less time than it has taken Monzo. The founder of Revolut says in the video further up in this thread that the advantage of fintech is the time from idea to delivery takes 3 months generally. 1 month is therefore not peanuts.

Monzo launches their Coin Jar way in advance and have not actioned any of the feedback. A whole month passes & they still haven’t released the code to remove individual Coin Jar transactions from the main feed. This is just super slow.

Meanwhile Revolut are already thinking ahead & probs working right now on how to create a Charity Vault. I have more confidence that they’ll declutter their feed before Monzo does.

Monzo are asleep at the wheel when it comes to innovating features. This focus on the current account really has slowed them. This is just my impression.

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Revolut are back at it again with the updates… this time Spending Analytics & BCH :fire:
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Spending updates seem to be for iOS only. Vaults 2.0 is available on Android as well though.

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The features do look good, but banking is still very much an emotional thing for a lot of people and many stay with a bank out of “loyalty” or because they like it even if it may not be as ahead. Monzo is very much still my preferred spending card because I like the UX and the customer service is on point. It was difficult to reach out to Revolut and I really do think they need more COps or rehaul the chat service- they keep cutting you off and not everyone is as well-trained!
Obviously they deal with more countries so they have additional languages to deal with, but I think for UK residents Monzo/ Starling are better options for day-to-day use and get better support via the chat or on forums.

I did want to try the crypto option but I’m not a premium user, and a lot of the features aren’t as useful to me right now. They would be to EU users/ people who get paid in EUR I expect. I’m impressed with how often they’re rolling out features, but I’m sure a lot of these have been in the works for awhile.

I think it’s pretty good publicity to capitalise on the increased number of sign-ups with their recent free card promo and roll out more new features in the wake of that to these new users. Well timed imo.

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