Your math only adds up if customers do not top up with card. Cashback needs to be subsidized for users that spent the majority in their EU home country and top up with debit card, and even more so when they top up with credit card.
Thatās a separate subsidation. Itās not related to cashback in the slightest.
They could easily remove top-up by card if they actually got local account details anyways.
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I am referring to the current product where card top ups are an integral part of the product offer, not any future unknowns. Thereās also no indication of any kind that Revolut plans to cancel that feature, as far as I am aware.
I canāt name a self respecting bank that letās you top up by card.
Once they have licences and local account details, itāll disappear to encourage you to get your salary paid into it.
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See, thatās the point, Revolut has to cover these fees whether you can or cannot name a selfrespecting or other bank that offers this. 
You donāt seem to get it. Itās not reasonable to assume all metal customers must have these fees subsidised.
Thereās no bank that does this and Revolut will eventually need to phase it out to become a proper bank that people have their salary paid into.
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I never was talking about all Metal customers. I explained in detail in which cases this is the case, I wrote āto some extendā and I explained exactly in which situation: when the Metal customer uses the service mainly in his EU home country and when he also uses card top ups.
Also, we havenāt mentioned that āmerchant feesā for merchants are more than only the interchange fees. So it is save to assume that costs related to top ups are even higher than the 0.2/0.3 %. Itās also fair to assume that Revolut gets a better deal here than the average merchant that accepts card payments. But it will add to the total costs of the service.
I was always referring to the current situation. And it is a fact that in some uses cases, this cashback program right now canāt be cost neutral.
Regarding future plans: I have no insight into Revolutās future business. When Monzo stopped this feature (it was too costly for them), customers where asking Revolut if they have any plans to also stop card top ups in the time coming. Revolut said they have not.
(I personally think it is more likely that they introduce a fee to cover the costs ā like Transferwise ā than shutting it down completely. This might also affect rev.me)
They will stop it when they get local details everywhere.
How else are they going to become your main bank account all over the globe?
Iām just not interested in reading tea leaves here. They might, they might not dump that feature. Itās not relevant when trying to understand their current price models and revenue streams.
Higher cashback as you can get more than 1% nowadays with a variety of cards and 0.1% is almost nothing (useless).
A list of airport lounges you can use the metal.
Apple pay.
Web app.
Dark mode.
European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS).
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There is one in the app, literally tells you when you go to buy a lounge pass.
Technically, Revolut hold your money in a client ring fenced account in the UK. They canāt touch this money and neither can the bank. In the event that Revolut goes bust or the underlying bank goes bust, youād be able to reclaim your money from the underlying bank in both cases.
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Google Pay (Visa) is not supported yet.
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There is no list if you havenāt subscribed to Metal.
800 ā¬ Rentalcars accident waiver. This should not cost Revolut a lot but it would certainly spare some money on users paying about 25ā¬/ day for full rental car insurance.
I would suggest to do it this way:
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User books a rentalcar through revolut app (Booking commission goes to Revolut so it would pay for the insurance cost beared by Revolut)
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Rental Price that the user pays would include a basic rentalcar insurance with self-participation of 800 ā¬ in case of an accident
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The rental service can use the Revolut card to check if 800 ā¬ could be frozen (Revolut would provide this amount āvirtuallyā to be frozen without freezing anyof the userās money)- not sure if this works with debit or Revolut needs to change the metal card to debit/credit card (with limited credit only for rentalcars) with 2 pins and 2 CVCs ( 1 for each debit/ limited credit)
The amount of 800ā¬ would be directly withdrawn by the rental car agency in case of an accident and Revolut will be compensated by the insurance company
- In this way users with metal card will pay less for rental cars booked through Revolut ( about 100ā¬ Less for 4-days rental) without any risk or frozen money or waiting time to be compensated and revolut will provide a premium service which makes users free, happy, feel safe and feel protected without paying extra ( since Revolut gets commissions on car rentals to pay for the extra insurance)
Itās a WIN-WIN!
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I personally find self-participation of 800 way to high, but regarding the āvirtualā deposit: right now, under their e-money license, they canāt do that. Your assumption is right that this offer would be based on a product (either credit card or current account + debit card) with some sort of credit allowance.
Right now, customers arenāt yet migrated to Revolutās entity with a banking license.
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Hi Frank,
Thanks for the interesting info.
What I meant by the 800ā¬ self-participation is that most of the rental-car offers for example on rental-cars.com have a mandatory basic insurance for rental cars with self-participation of 800ā¬.
My idea was that Revolut act as a reseller of these same offers in an online platform for metal-users and offer full insurance on top of the mandatory 800ā¬ so that the insurance company will cover the 800ā¬ and not the user. Or maybe offer a 100ā¬ instead if the reselling commission wonāt cover the cost of full insurance.
So for example:
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I buy an offer for a rental car from recolut platform using my metal card for 4 days for 80ā¬ (20 ā¬ per day including Revolutās Premium full insurance or 100ā¬ self-participation)
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I go to get my car from the rental office. Rental offices will not accept another insurance offered by a 3rd party ( Revolutās insurance ontop of the 800ā¬ self-participation insurance) so they would demand that you freeze 800ā¬ on your credit card in case of an accident
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You use your new debit/credit Metal card to freeze the 800ā¬. You booked this rental car on revolutās platform so the Revolut system knows that an attempt to freeze 800ā¬ will happen on this card.
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Revolut will complete the request of freezing the money without freezing any of the userās money. This credit allowance is offered only for freezing requests on rental-cars so it could be given without credit checks to the user
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In case of an accident, revolut will pay 800 ā¬ and get compensated by the insurance company partner or pays 700ā¬ and the user pays 100ā¬ which he should have payed anyway for 4 days insurance
Maybe this is early to talk about since users are still not migrated to the banking license but it needs a lot of preparation so maybe it is not so early to for such an idea
The problem I see is that āvirtually blocking 800 bucksā means offering a credit. And thatās what they canāt do right now. With Revolut, this would work if they actually would block the 800 bucks from your current balance.
Like you said, this might change when they start to offer more credit products, not just a consumer loan for UK customers with a partner bank.
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It would be nice to have extra cards for family members linked to my account
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I think the metal isnāt worth the price.i would be more interested in Apple Pay.But to make metal more appealing I would think free device insurance to start with.car breakdown Cover,but also a membership with points collection that can be used like avios etc.
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Some kind of reward scheme might be good
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