@anon44204028 is right though. Check their respective websites. Lloyd’s is an insurance business. They are not going to hold anyone’s money. To me it adds to the overall lack of credibility and seriousness that revolut shows.
Incidentally, in my opinion FSCS protection is a much stronger and safer assurance than ringfencing, because FSCS is statutory, while ringfencing depends on the bank (for example it offers no protection at all against rogue employees, failure in procedures, etc.)
Yes it does say that.
But you are not protected against fraud at revolut - they can transfer your ringfenced money out, dissappear and you have no comeback. The money simply wont be in the ringfenced account to pay you.
It’s unlikely but a lessor protection than FSCS, where should the above happen, the government will step in and refund you.
Surprised that no-one has mentioned this, but a clarification: withdrawals are completely free in the UK. It’s only abroad/internationally that they give £200 then charge at 3%
I think this is incorrect. It’s a £200 allowance for the entire Earth.
There is no limit on free withdrawals in the UK.
apart from your daily limit on ATM usage at the moment on CA - £400 / day
Monzo now offer a full Debit card.
Revolut issue a Prepaid Debit card (both their original MasterCard and the additional Visa card they have started rolling out on a limited basis)
You’re right, sorry.
For me what Revolut is lacking is:
This is all interesting stuff but I suspect an awful lot of people first coming to either Monzo or Revolut will be trying to avoid foreign transaction charges on holiday in Europe rather than much further afield - it’s certainly what brought me to Monzo in the first place on the recommendation of many friends who also only use it in Europe.
In which case the key point is which card gives the better exchange rate. And whether over a period, say 12 mth Revolut can justify the initial £5 charge through a better exchange rate and lower ATM fees above £200 when abroad. At this point my ability to work it out becomes sketchy. The info from Simonb (Oct '17 above) was V interesting but not conclusive.
My Qs therefore are
I might also note that based on a £2000 2-3wk holiday in USA using £600 in cash, the difference in exchange rates quotes is approx £8.08 in exchange rate and £4 in ATM fees (assuming of course no wk’end withdrawals). That makes Revolut £7.08 cheaper (after initial card charge, £12.08 cheaper in later years). I’m not sure this is worth getting bothered about. Probably is worth the surety of FSCS protection - depends on your attitude to risk I supposed.
(BTW my experience is also that not all places in some eastern european countries will take Monzo and in many places cash is still king so you should also have a credit/debit card with you and accept that some ATM withdrawal fees may have to be paid in these countries).
Hi Adam
I haven’t looked into the exchange rate between Interbank FX and MasterCard thoroughly myself but have been advised on average MasterCard does offer better rate.
I have used Monzo a bit last year when doing some travelling in Europe and it is great card, I have no complaints however I have recently opened a Starling account and will possibly be moving to this permanently as it offers what I was looking for originally, £0 fees abroad with the MasterCard exchange rate.
In my opinion:
I have a Revolut card I got for free due to a promotion. Never used it though, I don’t seem to be able to find a use case.
I use Monzo for all my regular banking because I like the app and company. Then carry a starling card just for cash withdrawals abroad.
I do wonder how long starling will be able to subsidise foreign cash withdrawals for 
Monzo is now my main bank too! Switch completed today 
I also have a Starling account that I’ll use whenever I travel abroad, I feel kinda bad that they arent getting much from me, they have saved me quite a lot of money already with their no fees rule! Oh well 
Isn’t that the reason monzo had to introduce fees? Because people were using it solely to withdraw money overseas. 
@maxthetenor Yes, to quote the link below:
A small proportion of customers generate a large proportion of the costs. Just 13% of customers account for more than 85% of our total ATM costs in any given month. Many of these people signed up to Monzo because of the great exchange rates and fee-free ATM withdrawals abroad, but don’t keep the card once they’re back in the UK.
There are other reasons such as general increased usage. And as customer numbers increase so do the costs. But that appears to be the main reason.
Mastercard determines a rate (called wholesale rate) and fixes it for the entire day in advance, i.e. the MC rate does not change throughout the day or throughout the weekend. They add a 0.25% markup. They publish said rate at 2pm, depending on where you live. Don’t listen to people claiming you can only see past MC rates.
The interbank rate (and all the plethora of other names it goes by, mid market rate, etc, though there are slight differences between some definitions) is the live exchange market rate, usually taken as the average of the current live sell and buy rates. It fluctuates all the time throughout the day. Because of this, sometimes it does easily swing above the MC rate, and sometimes below the MC rate, which is why you can very well see MC offering a better rate than those offered by Transferwise, Revolut etc, who claim “best rate”, “real exchange rate”, “interbank rate”, “mid-market rate” or whatever the equivalent of the above.
Be careful about claims and hidden markups, for example buy vs sell rate, or weekend rates.
Sell vs Buy: Not all Fintechs offer actual “mid-market” rate. Revolut, for example, has a different rate (or you can say charges a markup) when you convert “A->B” than when you convert “B->A”, i.e. buy rate is different than 1/(sell rate), i.e. you will lose money if you go back and forth at Revolut between two currencies even if the market rate has not actually changed.
Weekends: Exchanges typically close during weekends (i.e. the fx rate will be fixed until monday morning) and some Fintech/banks charge a premium for transactions over the weekend, but may not be upfront about it. Revolut, for example, charges a 0.5% markup over weekend for “major currencies” (vague) and 1.0% for all other currencies … but they’re not very upfront about it, you have to dig into their forums/terms/FAQ to find this out (a google search only finds complaints on their forums, and their search in Help Help Centre | Revolut doesn’t work for me at the moment).
I mentioned Revolut above as that’s the one I’m moving away from … for a plethora of reasons.
I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to this post. It’s been genuinely interesting and informative.
Ultimately, I’ve decided that Revolut has too many downsides and only one really good feature (ability to convert when rates are good) but I’m never really going to use it because I can’t check rates everyday then take a gamble by committing £1000’s in advance of a hol.
I love the Monzo app and everything they’re trying to do to shake up banking. So I’ve decided to switch my personal account to Monzo because I think they deserve the business much more than my existing bank.
However, free cash withdrawals really does make a difference to holiday costs if you use a lot of cash on hols (and in most of Europe outside the bigger cities, cash is still king - I’ve just come back from tourist honey-pot, Bruges and at least 20% of restaurants, cafe’s and shops took no cards). I’ve therefore opened a Starling account and pay a regular amount into it each month partly as a saving towards the hols, partly because they pay interest that’s as good as you can get in most standard bank ‘on-line saver’ accounts and partly because I think if you’re going to use the great features these new banks offer, it’s only reasonable to be at least a partly active customer.
I hope they both go from strength to strength and stay true to the values they’ve started with.
You’ll be pleased to hear that savings pots with interest are launching on Monzo in the very near future!
I think this is a great solution. Use both for their strengths. 