When they first launched they used to claim “fee free”. Probably the regulators made them stop.
Well? Any reply about this from Revolut? any at all? Its almost a year since we cant understand how this things are calculated and why they dont match stated policies and terms.
just don’t exchange currency on weekends
That is sound advice in general, but should not serve as justification for an inexplicable hike in the exchange rate.
Same here again. KES/EUR has a 2.5% markup on this Saturday. FAQ don’t explain why. And still no reply from Revolut. Can @anon33247966 help?
Just trying to understand your policy here. Thanks.
Hm, I’d have a more radical idea here; other banks (at least in Germany; yes, I know, fees might be higher in the UK or elsewhere) offer you the ‘Mastercard rate’ with no other fees. The Mastercard rate is a single daily rate that is published by Mastercard and is probably something like the worst rate you could get for that particular day. I’m pretty confident that they won’t publish rates at which banks can’t exchange all their card transactions with as that would make those banks loose money. So Revolut could update their policy to say that on the weekend, their rates aren’t worse than the Mastercard rate (and of course make sure that’s true).
This would:
- Settle discussions like this one
- Make things much nicer for customers as right now you might still be better off to use your regular bank card during weekend, forcing you to consider that before a purchase…
Actually, my parents have such a bank card. And I don’t recommend Revolut to them because I’d have to say: “Use your Revolut card for payments, except for on the weekend. Well, if you know that you need to make a payment on Friday, exchange on Friday, otherwise…”… That’s too complex. It needs to be: “Use your Revolut card, it will be cheaper or as expensive as the other card.”.
normal cards would put a hold.on transactions done on weekends and only really process them the next working day
Bumping this thread up. Just this weekend it was again possible to observe variating rates on major currencies vs. PLN.
Saturday would be “OK”, so just above 0,5%. Sunday was again A LOT worse than this.
This is a major frustration and it’d be so professional and serious of Revolut to take care and speak to problems like these instead of marketing vaults and spare change roundups.
But oh well. So happy more and more real banking options are available in Poland to take advantage of MC or Visa rates instead. Not as perfect rates as interbank, but at least predictable on weekends.
According to Revolut’s own FAQs the rate is NOT meant to fluctuate over the weekend. It’s suppised to be the closing rate at midnight on Friday, with the fixed surcharge (eg 0.5% for GBP/EUR) and remain at that until the rate reverts to a live rate on midnight Sunday/Monday.
Please Revolut. Address and explain this widespread concern.
That’s what I am asking. Are the people here saying that the margin changes meaning that the rate Revolut shows changes, or that Revolut stays the same and the market rate changes?
The second is what I expect.
The rates CAN fluctuate during the week end.
During the weekend (Friday 23:59 - Sunday 23:59) as the Forex markets are closed, we take the rate from Friday 23:59 and apply a markup of 0.5% on major currencies and 1.0% on other currencies. Please be aware that we pull rates from our provider, and they are obligated to present us with updated rates whenever they are informed of a change from one of their suppliers.
#=====>> This means that the weekend rate may fluctuate and not be the same as the exchange rate we use from Friday.
For illiquid currencies like Russian Ruble and Thai Baht, there is a 1.5% markup on weekend.
They fluctuate within the weekend too
Can we make Revolut to use rate ONLY from Friday 23:59 and ignore their provider changes during weekend? That would be transparent, constant and easy for users to plan their spending during weekends. Let MorningStar to present Revolut their updated rates but ignore them. So Revolut can use updated rates for their internal knowledge only and keep for users rate from Friday 23:59.
It’s not how it’s working, Revolut will lose money if the are using a higher rate as the one during the week end.
Well, the problem is that the rates Revolut uses sometimes really don’t ever exist:
Here, Revolut uses a strange rate for a currency that has a fixed rate to EUR.
One could think of bazillion ways of making the current “solution” way better…
As simple as it can be- if Visa, MC and pretty much all the other card vendors find a way not to apply ridiculous weekend markups, Revolut could do that, too, for sure.
Possible options for Revolut to consider- that is, if they actually cared for their core funcitonalities for travellers instead of cross-selling marketing hype like, all due respect, crypto or vaults, would be:
- Use Monday spot rate for weekend transactions as they get “completed”.
-
Include in-app option to select just plain MC rates instead of mid-market ones.
I believe these are available for all the card issuers, if needed. This would be helpful for so called illiquid currencies, too.
Or, well, finally, offer more currency accounts to get money ahead of time and not have to use the unreliable weekend rate.
Of course, let’s not forget major exchange rate issues with less popular currencies reported here, like Gwatemalan one, MAD etc. etc.
Yet, Revolut prefers to market this de-facto rip-off as “best possible rate” and so 2 out of 7 days a week you potentially pay them > 2% fee, which is pretty comparable to standard bank offers.
the solution is pretty simple, make a hold for rate+safeguard on the weekends and process the next business day at the actual rate.
but i’m not sure if you can do that with a prepaid card… but the merchant doesn’t need to know anyway. curve does this silently for payments over £150 on hotels assuming they are actually deposits
It‘s also limited to card payments. But Revolut’s platforms also allows real time P2P transfers, where the money is immediately available for the receiver.
@frank, the amount on the final currency doesn’t get affected, only the amount that at the end is taken from the sender on the currency of origin. while the rate+safeguard amount is on hold it can’t be spent so it is safe for revolut also for p2p transfers and fair for the user.