When we travel to an unsupported country what happened? Can we use the Revolut card or not at all?
If yes how the rate is applied?
I think we have to ask a question to answer this question properly.
Do you mean a currency that is completely unsupported? Or are you talking about a currency that you canāt hold a balance in?
Assuming the former, Iām pretty sure the card will just not work entirely. Whether thatās in the form of a decline or thatās in the form of anything else, I imagine itāll just decline.
Assuming the latter, you will be able to spend perfectly fine as long as you have enough balance either in an currency to cover the purchase.
As for the rates, these can differ depending on what time you do the transaction, and what currency the transaction is. Iād urge you to read https://www.revolut.com/fee-schedule as this has a proper breakdown by Revolut themselves and will be kept updated.
As for currencies you canāt make a transaction in at all: ZWD, CKD, KID, PND, TVD, AMD, FOK, ERN, BTN, EHP, CUC, SHP, GGP, JEP, IMP, SDG, SYP, IRR, PRB, SOS, KPW.
This is the current list, Revolut keep an updated list at: Help Centre | Revolut
Note: Iām relatively sure the ZWD tanked and underwent hyperinflation so itās no longer used by any country, including Zimbabwe. They now use USD.
Perhaps itās simpler to tell you which currencyā¦
I am going to Mauritania which has āMRU currency (called Ouguiya)
MRU specifically would be interbank bid rate during the weekdays, interbank bid rate + 1% markup on the weekends.
Thanks for help Recchan.
Can you elaborate a little more? I donāt understand what means āinterbank bid rateā comparing with the normal rate that Revolut usually offers.
The interbank bid rate is the rate they offer as usual, just in more specific terms as some people on the forums have been confused in the wordings that other services use, resulting in them posting about getting the wrong rate.
The interbank bid rate is essentially the rate that their partner that does all the actual currency purchasing, is offering to pay for the currency.
@KIMW does this answer any questions you have had? If thereās anything that needs clarifying hit me up with a mention, if you feel as if you got the answer, it may be worth marking a post as a solution for others in the future.
Yes thank you very much.
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Iāve been shopping in Serbia the last few days with contactless. No problems and zero fees charged. Hope this helps.
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Iām new to Revoult and not yet able to post a new thread but this is related, these are my findings based on using Revoult in Barbados (BBD) which not a Revoult supported currency (i.e. an account cannot be added for this currency).
Hopefully this may be helpful for people who might be thinking of using Revoult for other non supported currencies.
My understanding is that Revoult can still be used in Barbados (or another unsupported country currency) even though a currency account cannot be added, this has been confirmed to me by someone who is actually using Revoult in Barbados.
Iām from the UK, I have also a UK bank account (Santander 123 account), my Revolut base currency is GBP and I am using the Metal subscription.
Iām relocating to Barbados for a year on their Welcome Stamp Scheme. Whilst using a Santander Debit card was OKāish for short term holidays (at 2.95% commission!) I needed a more permanent and cost effective way to manage transactions in foreign currency over the period of a year.
So wanted to make sure I understood correctly how the Revolut Metal subscription would work and to see if Iāve got the basics right, the information below is based on reading through the community forums etc., so have I understood everything correctly and is there more I should know?
So, on the understanding Bajan Dollars is not a supported currency, I am however still able use the card and pay via the app which will take from my GBP account (the default account I will use to hold all money) and automatically convert GBP into BBD at the current interbank exchange rate at the time of the transaction.
If currency exchanges are made on weekdays (Mon-Fri UTC) the interbank exchange rate will be used without any markup on all currencies (except for Thai Baht and Ukrainian Hryvnia where thereās a 1% markup, with a small 0.5% fee for anything above Ā£1,000 per month). On the weekend (Sat-Sun London time) the provided rates are fixed to protect against fluctuations, this means there is a markup of +1% to all currencies (apart from THB and UAH which will have a 2% markup).
To clarify, the card selects which currency to use in the following order:-
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The currency of the payment (e.g. if you are in the UK carrying out a transaction in Euro, funds will be deducted from the Euro balance if the balance is sufficient).
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The base currency (GBP) as determined by the home address.
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The next active currency with a sufficient balance.
As a BBD currency account (as per any other unsupported currency) cannot be created this creates 2 issues Iāve found to be aware of:-
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its not possible to load a BBD currency account for use over the weekend and therefore the card becomes more expensive to use over the weekend due to inflated currency exchange rates. If a currency account was holding a balance that was available to be used over the weekend there is then no need for a currency conversion at the higher rate. A potentially inconvenient option to avoid the higher weekend rates would be to withdraw cash for the weekend prior to the increased weekend rates.
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Its not possible to periodically exchange in and out the currency to take advantage of preferential exchange gains and losses.
As a rule, when using the card in an ATM (or when paying for goods or services) and there are options, this should ALWAYS be done in local currency and declining Direct Currency Conversion (DCC).
The Metal subscription provides the following main benefits: -
1% cashback of transactions.
Up to Ā£800 ATM cash withdrawals.
Daily interest calculated on savings at 0.65%.
Unlimited foreign currency exchanges.
Travel insurance, capped at a yearly fee, of Ā£37.50.
As Iāll be working away for 1 year I donāt think the Revault travel insurance is going to be sufficient, I understand for any 12 month period the coverage is for a maximum of 183 days, with no trip lasting longer than 20 days. Irrespective of this, whether the travel insurance is up to the standard of a specialist travel insurance policy Iām not sure, but in this age of COVID Iāll be taking out locally provided āon islandā specialist travel insurance just to be absolutely sure.
Following on from what Iāve read and summarised I have some further questions: -
Barbadian Dollar isnāt a supported currency although I could create an account and transfer money into USD as BBD is pegged to the USD 2-1 so if I keep money in a USD account and pay using the Revolut debit card and app is there an advantage converting from USD to BBD or does it depend if the vendor can accept payments in USD which I presume some can, this may be the answer to buying currency at better rates and loading and using the card for the weekends as an alternative to withdrawing cash from an ATM?
I need to pay a Welcome Stamp Charge via a card which is $4000.00 BBDā as stated on their website, payment methods are Visa, Mastercard and American Express, so I move my finds into Revoult and use my Revoult debit card for this but which is better, should I make the funds available in USD or GBP or is there no real difference? What happens in his example, what is the real-life calculation, presumably converting from USD to BBD and on the Metal Subscription what can I expect to happen in relation to cash back etc?
For the bigger monthly expenditure like rent and car hire if USD is an option can I can set up monthly Direct Debits using the USD account details (IBAN & BIC codes) and on Metal subscription would this be preferable and assume these qualify for 1% cashback? If not I can set up monthly direct debits using the GBP account and the currency conversion would be automatic, direct debits are only processed on weekdays I think, is this correct?
Ultimately, would it be recommended to use Revolut to replace the UK Santander 123 account, have my salary paid in and set up my mortgage and other Direct Debit payments, has anyone else completely replaced their home bank account with Revoult successfully?
I hope this might be helpful to others, please correct me if anything is incorrect and any advice appreciated!
Hi I am travelling to Barbados in two weeks time, I understand that BBD is not a supported currency on Revolut, so have exchanged GBP into USD on the card as I am aware that USD is widely accepted in Barbados as the BBD is pegged at circa 1 USD = 2BBD. My question is, will I be able to use my USD card to pay in restaurants etc as a pre-paid $USD debit card?
Hi, yes you can use your Revolut card no problems at all in restaurants, supermarkets and petrol stations etc, all transactions will be converted into BBD at the near current interbank rate rate at the time of the transaction apart from the weekend where a surcharge is applied.
Youāre probably better off just paying in BBD without buying USD on your account, so it will be converted from GBP directly otherwise you are converting twice and losing more. GBP>USD>BBD.
USD is so expensive right now also.
Thatās good advice, but since BBDs are pegged to USD anyway, it might not matter that much here. I am curious how real life transactions on Revolutās platform actually look like, comparing both scenarios. But then, I am not that curious to recommend it to anyone, unless that person shares my curiosity. 
always?
I think I would prefer to fix at a time convenient to my choice as alluded to by @CJD rather than find market forces have trumped my expectations. Appreciating that could work either way of course 
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Many currencies are pegged to the USD (both currencies used in the country) but from my experience still better to just use your GBP conversion to the local unsupported currency.
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Thatās why I said I am curious how this would play out. In theory, BBD to USD is always 1:2, it is a fixed rate, no?
So GBP ā USD ā BBD vs. GBP ā BBD should be somewhat interchangeable in theory, since thereās no fluctuation and you canāt avoid the GBP/USD rate. And converting into USD beforehand would allow you to lock in the costs for BBD.
I did a quick check from within the app:
GBP to USD: 1.13
GBP to BBD: 2.25
Assuming the discrepancy is a rounding error here, it might not matter.
Apologies @Frank for not entirely agreeing with you on this occasion.
Except if, by unforeseen circumstance, that conversion took place outside your control and at a time when the weekend conversion rate kicked in (for example). You might well have converted to USD at an appropriate time but the forward conversion to BBD may be outside your influence.
Sure. They did keep it stable for the last 47 years, but we do live in crazy times.
I was referring specifically to when the weekend rate kicks in at the point where the NY exchange closes which may not be immediately apparent to the casual observer.