Pay with Crypto

So :r: announced the ability for UK and Switzerland customers to make any card use their Crypto as means of payment for everyday transactions with 1% Cashback even at home.

Now my question is simple. Why only UK and Switzerland? I mean crypto services are available in other countries too. What is the reason behind partial feature availability when people in other countries pay the same exact fees for Metal, Premium, Plus, etc, yet receive only a fraction of the features…

This is not meant to be a rant, but I am just sad since where I come from, metal seems so blunt compared to other countries at this point.

Any views?

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Same legal entity, most likely. UK and Swiss customers are served by the same UK company while other customers elswhere are served by European, American or Asian branches.

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It’ll be regulatory stuff/compliance with the FCA (UK) and similar in Switzerland.

Crypto is FCA authorised and regulated in the UK under certain laws IE money laundering I believe is one, fraud stuff another.

So this will allow payment processing in similar form.

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Crypto cards are widely availabe in Europe. Regulation is certainly an important topic here, but in this instance, I don’t believe Swiss customers get this because they’re similarily regulated like the UK. They get this because they are customers of Revolut Ltd, which operates in the UK.

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Crypto services are provided by Revolut LTD in EU too. It says it below the Crypto tab in my :r: app.

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Yes. Sometimes, seemingly random product management decision have very simple and boring reasons.

In this case, the fact that the UK and Switzerland get a feature, and everyone else does not, and that UK and Swiss customers are customers of the same subsidiary, just seems more likely to be the reason to me.

Remeber, crypto cards are available in other European countries. I don’t see evidence that regulation is the key here. Here’s a list for crypto.com’s card availability: Crypto.com Visa Cards are available in which European countries? | Crypto.com Help Center

Revolut could offer this in France, for example, where crypto.com offers its card. Revolut has much more customers in France than in Switzerland. Why focus on the random selection of the UK (biggest market) and Switzerland (a somewhat neglected market with a fragmented product, weird SEPA restrictions due to GB IBANs, limited (or no?) insurance offering for premium subscriptions, small customer count … ) I would go with Ockham’s razor here: what does Revolut Switzerland and UK have in common?

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I’d still put it down to regulation in each country as the local regulatory body still needs to approve it, even if said company traded the same cross border.

Either that or in testing, but you wouldn’t really pick the largest market and one that has an interesting layer to it.

The FCA would have had to approve the ability to spend in crypto in the UK, everything is run past them in terms of payments etc.

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When Revolut introduced crypto wallets, this functionality was available everywhere. It was the standard behavior of the app to treat crypto wallets just like any other currency you‘re holding. Not everyone liked that, people ended up spending crypto involuntarily when Bitcoin was the wallet with the largest balance, for example.

I agree with you that it comes down to regulation. But I would argue it’s not about local regulations of Revolut’s customers. It’s about where Revolut is regulated. Revolut UK and „Revolut Switzerland“ are regulated by the same authority. (Switzerland is the only region that is regulated by the UK authority besides the UK itself.) So making it available for Swiss customers was probably a no brainer.

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That actually makes sense.

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This is what I meant in a rounded way :joy:

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Yes, with the difference that Switzerland is in tow of the UK here. Switzerland being part of this roll out is a practicality and not because they have easier to manage regulatory requirements compared to other larger European markets.

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Love this community hello all. Im looking transfer crypto eg xrp to Revolut but don’t see a wallet address…is it just me? Or has Revolut missed a key need from its users that, frankly, want to be use the device as an off rant - not avoiding HMRC!

Surely, I’m missing a trick! If you can buy crypto then they are stored in a wallet…how do I see the address for each coin associated to me? Thanks in advance gurus of the community.

Side note: Love to see product champions take ownership and support fellow users, out of goodwill and comradery. Says a lot about the product!

Would be awesome for Revolut to recognise and quantify the cost savings generated through case deflection to the community….even commit a % of savings to developing top ideas/functionality voted on by said community. Food for thought!

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You don’t receive the wallet key on Revolut, this is clearly explained in the terms of use.

How we hold cryptocurrency as your nominee

You will own the rights to the financial value of any cryptocurrency we buy for you.

We will hold your cryptocurrencies on your behalf and you will have a right (called a ‘beneficial right’) to them. This means you can tell us when to sell or transfer it (within the limits of these terms and conditions). You have complete control of your cryptocurrencies, and we will only act upon instructions you give us. You will not be able to carry out transactions yourself.

The cryptocurrency we buy for you is held in a ‘virtual account’ that also holds cryptocurrencies for other Revolut customers. You will not have a separate cryptocurrency account. You can use the Revolut app to see the amount of cryptocurrency we’re holding for you.

There won’t be any contractual relationship between you and our partnered cryptocurrency exchanges or any sub-custodian we appoint.

  1. Withdrawing, transferring, or spending cryptocurrency
    Withdrawing cryptocurrency to an external wallet

If you are on an eligible plan or in an eligible location (please refer to the FAQs), you can withdraw your cryptocurrency balance to an external wallet owned or controlled by you. We will tell you which cryptocurrencies we support for withdrawals within the app.

A fee applies for withdrawals, which will always be shown to you in the app before you submit your instruction. This fee consists of the network fee charged on the blockchain and an additional service fee which we may charge you for facilitating this transaction. You can find additional information about fees in our FAQs page.

Like with our other currency transfers, we apply financial crime checks, which may result in us blocking certain addresses or preventing a withdrawal. We will store and process this information in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. Revolut is not liable for any losses you incur related to a transfer of any cryptocurrency to or from an external wallet.

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Also, I find it strange that :r: is licensed for crypto transactions in Cyprus as per this article here, and this source here, yet Cyprus is left out of this :pleading_face:

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Something’s will forever be a mystery. :sweat_smile:

Isn’t that further evidence for the theory that this product rollout happened like it did because of the company structure, where Revolut basically formed two groups, group one being UK + Switzerland, group two being the rest of Europe (including Cyprus)?

(For clarification, the feature isn’t end to end crypto transaction. It’s a crypto wallet that funds regular debit card transactions for payments in the local currency of the merchant. From a regulatory perspective, you’re probably fine if you’ve got the pieces “holding and trade crypto in a wallet” and “process card payments” covered. There aren’t merchant parties involved in the crypto trade, that happens on Revolut’s platform alone.)

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Yea, I understand your logic. But I think it’s not that simple either. Or there are many “groups”. For example only Poland has savings vault. :sweat_smile:

Yes, but remember what the initial question was: Why do Swiss customers get this feature? And this question, I believe, can be explained with it.

When Revolut set up shop in Lithuania, they introduced credit cards for the first time. Limited to Lithuanian residents at first, and now available in a couple other Central European markets, but not in Switzerland, or France. Traditionally, saving accounts and credit card business go hand hin hand. A bank collects funds with saving accounts, sometimes locks them in with fixed savers for a defined time, and then sources the credit business that way. So maybe this is Revolut’s reason for that, who knows.

So yes, sure, there are further “sub-groups” differentiating product features. The group of countries where credit is available for example. Or the group of countries where Revolut offers local IBANs. I personally wouldn’t put them on the same level on a diagram explaining Revolut’s company structure. They’re just not on the same level as the two major legal entities that sit on top.

(I should add that we’re just looking at Europe here. America and Asia are totally different beasts.)

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hi! is this still the case now? Crypto card is only available in UK and Switzerland?

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@Lilym Hello :wave: Welcome to our community.

At the moment, crypto cards are accessible in the UK and Switzerland. However, we’re actively working on expanding and enhancing our services, so keep an eye out for updates. :rocket:

Veda | Community Team

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