Default currency in physical stores and POS

Ideas & Feedback Feedback
1

Hi!

I’m trying to use the Revolut card on a daily basis in Spain, where I live, to pay in physical stores and not just when traveling abroad.

The inconvenience is that the Pound is always the default currency so I always have to say “please if the POS ask you for the currency, select euros” otherwise I en up paying more because of the Euro>Pound>Euro exchanges.

Sometimes the person using the POS doesn’t know how to select currency. I even tried myself once and I couldn’t figure out how.

Can I somehow set Euro as the default currency for payments in countries with Euro?

Thanks!

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2

Hello @pajares,

As I can see your base currency is Euro. However, as your card is a multi currency card, you should always choose to be charged in the local currency. You’ll mainly need to do that for ATM withdrawals.

3

I really don’t want to offend anyone, but come on… This is a solid contender for the most useless answer of the year :slight_smile:

The question was very clear and totally makes sense: is it possible to temporarily make it such that the card is always charged in one specific currency? Or even automatically detect it using your location.

Is suspect the answer is ‘no’ due to the way mastercard works but at least it would be a meaningful answer.

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Im really sorry to hear that my answer was useless.

At the moment, there’s nothing we can do on it, maybe further down the line.

5

Thanks @anon33247966. Shame, as it would be a really useful feature, I’m sure many would agree.

How about having an optional Euro-only card linked to the same Revolut account?

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It’s something that we’re actually looking into it and start thinking how to implement it. Hopefully, we’ll be able to introduce default EUR cards for europe in the future.

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7

Good to know… It’s something related to an idea I recently submitted.

It would be a nice thing to have a card with EUR as default currency.

8

Thanks @dop for pushing this question. I wasn’t neither satisfy with the first answer.
Thanks @anon33247966 to be answer so quickly every question.

I understand this is a limitation from the global banking system so there is not possible to change the default currency of a card from UK. You’d need to create a finance entity in a country that is using Euros. Is this right?

Unfortunately I think there are some POS that are not ready to select currency. I found one that shows the two currencies showed on screen to choose one but I tried every button and nothing worked. Others POS don’t ask me to choose but in this case, I don’t know why, they use Euros. Maybe the problem is with old POS.

1 Like
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Well, this is more complex than it seems. It’s really about how the POS systems are set up. In Germany for example, a vast majority of merchants will charge you in EUR as a standard. Most likely, they won’t notice the base currency of the Revolut card at all. Just some businesses that are used to deal with travelers might notice that the card identifies itself as a GBP card. It happened to me at a German Airport bar once.