welcome to revolut! you come following a simple promise and end up needing to become a forex geek to understand why, technically, you weren’t deceived. enjoy the ride.
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I really don’t know what you plan to learn about fintech and banking by calculating hidden fees and getting to know what currencies Revolut conciders “major” :))
For learning Revolut will need to publish their business model, at least about fees of card companies, corresponding banks and so on. Clearly, it’s something new and interesting from a technical perspective: what’s happening when you top-up? What fees are implied by card issuer? How transaction is completed?
By now it’s just a opinion exchange of guys who got frustrated by fees of product which was created on it’s owner’s banking fees frustration
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- Bank transfers are free, at least in the SEPA region (99% of the banks in Portugal here charge a fee between 0.50€-1.00€).
- You can see the “major currencies” in the Terms and Conditions of Revolut. There is a clear description of what are the currencies with markup and how much it is.
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@pepe2124 :))) I think Revolut should be a religion, because explaining just makes it worse :))
From your citation of T&C, CZK is a “major” currency with 0,5% weekend markup.
Yesterday I was calculating a real weekend markup for USD-CZK and it’s 1%.
Easy to check: Market closing ask for USD-CZK was around 21,88 (link). Revolut woud sell you USD for 22,124 (see screenshot below) which is a roughly 1%, for sure not 0,5% as you believe it should be.
Are you sure you used the correct rate? The graph with historical rates you linked seem to display mid market rates. If you check the bid / ask rates, you see a relatively large spread for USD/CZK.
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What the heck do you mean by “relatively large spreads”?? :))
Check the current spread:
Bid 21.736
Ask 21.776
Mid market: 21.7605
In other words difference between mid-market and ask is less than 0,02. You can’t be serious that this would turn 1% markup to 0.5%. To save you time with calculation 0.5% is around 0.10 and 1% is let say 0.20
Making conclusions about a markup based on a historic mid market rate is flawed. You simply can’t know the ask price based on a historic mid market rate. This moment, the spread is already higher than in your example (see screenshot). For this rate pair, it fluctuates way more than for EUR/GBP for example, where the spread right now is 0,0001.
So yes, I call that a relatively large spread
Also, from your screenshot, I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. CZK/USD is not the same as USD/CZK. You can’t deprive the USD/CZK ask price by simulating a CZK to USD transaction. That gives you the USD ask price.
The historic USD/CZK rate 
shows for June 8, 23:45 is 21.8650.
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you are checking spread between bid/ask, I was reffering to difference between mid-market and ask. Anyway, feel free to add a typical difference between bid/ask, it still won’t change situation.
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Referring screenshot: I was always speaking about ASK price. You are right about one thing: what we see in historical graph is a mid-market, so Friday closing mid-market was 21.8895.
To get an ask price you should add a difference of mid-market and ask, which is below 0.02.
Historic USD/CZK Revolut rate is irrelevant as we are speaking about weekend markup. Whatever you will add won’t change a simple calculation that markup is 1% (~0.2) not 0.5% (~0.1).
Well, I think that’s a point; it depends on where you live. In Germany, banking is comparatively cheap; for example, I’m pretty sure you can’t find a single bank here that charges for SEPA transfers. In addition, the bank I’ve been using for some time already offers a free current account with a free VISA credit card that allows for free withdrawals worldwide (at the current VISA rate, private ATMs charge extra, minimum amount is 50€) and free payments worldwide. I guess it’s hard for Revolut to really improve on that a lot (they are a bit cheaper on workdays and offer a more modern app, obviously), but that may be a lot different in other countries.
I’ve been working in Switzerland for a short period of time last year and I was alienated by how complex and expensive banking can be. I guess the Swiss aren’t alone in this regard…
I would check any of the rates (CZK–>USD or USD–>CZK) next Friday 23:55 London time and then compare it to the weekend rate. If you’re noticing an irregularity, you can ask support to investigate this.
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What I can tell you is that in my case I’m always charged 1 extra cent for every transaction. I’ve been observing this for a while while transacting in a different currency (no matter which) and assuming it silently but no matter what the converter says in every moment, all my transactions are charged 1 extra cent, never sticking to the conversion.
It’s a ridiculous, 1 cent is not going to break the bank but sounds to me like a hidden fee and that Revolut does not stick to the promise of interbank exchange rates which is worse.
I’ve just made 5 transactions in a row, the total sum as per the converter differs by 5 cents vs the actual amount charged. Has someone else experienced this?