How can we make Premium/Metal 10x better?

Insurance against theft by hacking the revolut account. That would give a lot of confidence!
And more local issuers to enable revolut for paying itunes/apple app store.

I agree with this actually. Revolut should adjust their T&C to include EEA rather than ā€˜Europeā€™.

I disagree however that itā€™s ingenious. In the T&C it specifically states within Europe. Not within European Union, European Economic Area or European Free Trade Area etc.

Just Europe. That isnā€™t really disingenuous, as theyā€™ve told us outright. It does suck though.

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Just because they tell you outright that they make much more money from you, and that they are not going to give back that money does not make it any better. Especially when the 0.2% cap is used as the excuse for why there is a difference between ā€œEuropeā€ and other regions.

Iā€™m not arguing that at all, Iā€™m just saying that it isnā€™t disingenuous to say ā€œwe only provide 0.2% in Europeā€

They could be subsidizing large retailers with other countries in the Europe region tbf - remember the 0.2% is a cap. Big retailers like Tesco, Asda, Apple, Walmart etc arenā€™t paying the cap. Theyā€™re paying half (if that) and have massive transaction volume.

  • make the prepaid cards real debit cards, as it is they get rejected at offline POSs
  • expand the trading feature, add a REAL buy/sell API for people who want to automate trades, apart from that get inspiration from Robinhood, raise the 100 free trades limit to perhaps 500? add more CDFs, stocks are too limiting
  • add a web app (and perhaps even an ipad/tablet app)
  • lower the subscription cost until you add something substantial, its ridiculous to charge 10 pounds basically for a different card design
  • remove the concierge (useless)
  • raise the ATM withdrawal limit
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cheapier is the first step to increase metal user.

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And I think that they are only doing this because they know that interchange fees are completely non-transparent and that most people just assume that all countries within ā€œEuropeā€ probably have similar caps and therefore 1% outside ā€œEuropeā€ and 0.1% in ā€œEuropeā€ is just fine. But this is often not the case.

Marketing: up to 1%. Swiss guy: oh great, letā€™s sign up. Oh wait, itā€™s just 0.1% in Europe, why!!??? Ah, there is some law. Ok, letā€™s buy.

But Actually:
Marketing: up to 1%. Swiss guy: oh great, letā€™s sign up. Oh wait, itā€™s just 0.1% in Europe, why!!??? Ah, some EU law. But Switzerland is not part of that. Actually, Revolut earns 0.24% more on every Swiss transaction than on EEA transactions. And even more if spent in other currencies. So why is it 0.1%?

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Up to means anything between 0.1% and 1%. That is not disingenuous, itā€™s true.

Also, Switzerland is likely under interchange caps as well, not that I know for sure. Even if they arenā€™t, Revolut are likely using that to subsidize the 0.1% they give to people from large retailers.

As I mentioned - disingenuous behavior doesnā€™t mean a bad product. If you donā€™t like a product? Donā€™t get it.

Itā€™s definitively not, I know for sure!

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ā€œlikely under interchange capā€. So, what is it you donā€™t understand about a 0.24% difference I was talking about?

Revolut doesnā€™t give anything. Retailers are merchants. Their contracts are with acquirers, not with issuers (such as Revolut). And they pay the interchange fee and additional (negotiable) fees and rates.

A difference doesnā€™t mean the cap isnā€™t the same - as businesses here are generally quite large and could probably negotiate quite a small interchange. Since weā€™re quite heavily based on debit cards, itā€™s also possible to have a 0.2% difference assuming the retailers pay 0.1% (which Iā€™m sure some can negotiate to 0.06%) depending on if the Swiss are more heavy on credit.

What donā€™t you understand that leads you to assume Iā€™m talking out of my backside? Perhaps you should learn some manners for replying in such a backhanded way.

If MasterCard has negotiated with Tesco that they pay 0.05% due to their massive transaction volume and large average spend - Revolut isnā€™t going to make 0.2% interchange on that. MasterCard nor Visa will give them that.

Itā€™s as simple as that.

As such, itā€™s reasonable to assume that Revolut will not make 0.1% or 1% on each purchase you make and as such will be cross subsidizing from smaller stores and foreign countries.

This:

The cap is a legislatorial concept. And it is not the same.

Care to back that up? Otherwise one could think you are ā€œtalking out of my backsideā€ to use your words.

The acquirer is WorldPay (I think), not MC.

By the way. You could also just use logic. The reason why these caps exist is because the Visa/Mastercard duopoly is so powerful that they can dictate the fees.

So like, Iā€™ve some some reading

The Swissā€™ highest cap with Visa seems to be 0.5% for airlines.

As I mentioned itā€™s probably a case of cross subsidization of merchants who have negotiated lower interchange with the acquirer, as Revolut will still be paying 0.1% even if they get half of that.

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Itā€™s not. Unless you finally back up your claim about lower interchange fees in the EEA.

Like I said, it is 0.44% for regular transactions in Switzerland vs 0.2% in the EEA (consumer, prepaid). Interchange fees for these types of transactions are fixed, and this is what Revolut gets. And not some fantasy number you made up in your Tesco story. In some countries merchants can together try to negotiate different fees for their respective industries, but they donā€™t negotiate individually because they donā€™t even have a contract with the card network.

What you can negotiate are all the other fees of the acquirer and payment service provider. Typically a combination of percentage and fixed amount per transaction or transaction step (authorization, settlement etc.).

The EEA has caps of 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards.

Large merchants will be able to negotiate these down. Caps are the top limit - not the fixed price.

Caps are the legal limit. And the published 0.2% are the current fixed fee, which just happen to be the maximum legal amount. There is no negotiation. What do you think, how does it work outside of Europe, why do you have cards with 2% cashback? If all the large merchants had to do was ā€œnegotiatingā€ 0.05 percent?

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Banking outside of Europe seems to be more profitable in general - it isnā€™t just the interchange fees that fund this.

Big merchants will not be paying the 2% there either :slight_smile: may I also add itā€™s only giants like Chase and AmEx that offer this. Your local credit union wonā€™t be offering 3 different cards at 3%, although there may a couple of exceptions depending on how rich they are

To further add those cards require pretty good credit - the poorer people are also paying in droves for the better off to benefit from those

In America (all 3 big North American countries) merchants pay even more than 5% in transaction fees. Thereā€™s a lot from where to give good cashback.

And things sometimes gets even more weird. When a merchant pays 5% sale fee, +2% for foreign card, +2% because is a credit card and eventually some percentage if the card is high tier credit.

Then, then merchant pays a monthly fee for the POS rental + a subscription fee for the same thing.

Thatā€™s what America calls free capitalism. As long as thereā€™s no cap in fees, everything goes with the market. If all banks decide tomorrow to charge the merchant 25% thereā€™s nothing to do but to pass this over the end user.

I saw a cryptocurrency card that gives 0.5% in every purchase using the physical card in EU. Are they going out of business?