Which Revolut account will foreign card transactions debit from?

Hi all,

I’'m based in the UK and topped up my account in GBP. I then opened a EUR and JPY account and hold balances in each of them.

If I use my card in say Japan, will the money be taken from my JPY account balance? Or taken from my base currency account (GBP), then converted in JPY?

I’m trying to understand if it’s worth “fixing” the exchange rate basically by transferring money to the JPY account in advance. And would this also be a way to avoid the weekend FX fees?

Thanks for your help!

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Hello,

You do not need to convert GBP to JPY when spending. When you spend with card conversion is made instantly from GBP to JPY.

From the FAQ


What balance will my Revolut card use when I am abroad?

Your Revolut account can hold a balance in EUR, GBP, USD, PLN and CHF. The card selects which balance to use in the following order:

*The local currency of the merchant/ATM e.g. if you are in Spain, it will deduct funds from your Euro balance.

*Your base currency - i.e. if you used a UK address to sign-up, your base currency will be GBP.

*Your largest balance.

You need to have sufficient funds in one single balance in order to make a transaction. If you don’t have enough funds in the balance of the local currency, it will default to your next largest balance and so on.

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Cheers, saw that but I’m not sure how up-to-date their FAQ is as I’ve created a JPY account on the app. So if I was to hold JPY on it, and spend yen in Japan, why would the first rule as in the FAQ not apply?

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If your JPY balance was enough to cover the transaction, and the transaction was in JPY, then it would be deducted from your JPY balance.
If that balance didn’t cover the whole transaction, the base currency balance would be used instead (for example, GBP in your case).
If this balance wasn’t large enough either, the transaction will be charged using the largest balance.

Long story short: if you exchange enough money to cover the transaction to JPY, you fix the conversion rate. If you don’t, it will be taken from GBP at the live rate :slight_smile:

3 Likes

do not forget about DCC:

That’s wrong or at least It didn’t work as expected for me! I just returned from my trip in Japan. I still have enough JPY on my account however when I did the payment (small amount), 2 transactions were charged using my base account in Swiss Francs! I do remember the cashier did asked me if
I wanted to pay in Euro or JPY and I confirmed for JPY at Osaka Int’l Aiport ITAMI.

Hey @xXx :slight_smile:

Check the receipt. In which currency is it? If you had enough money to cover the amount the receipt specified, in the receipt’s currency, then it should have been charged in that currency.

You can fix your FX rate for the weekend otherwise there is an extra markup on the weekend min 1%… On business days as many say you get the market rate. So fixing has a meaning if you expect worse FX rate or you want to spend on the weekends.

Last advice : spend not more than you have on account you want to spend from. Orherwise it will be charged from your original balance or from the largest balance you have… I had an issue with this as I fixed HUF from EUR for the weekend but as payment was higher than on the balance i got charged in EUR. Kind of annoying!! Is it not possible actually use two currencies to pay? @revolut this is not the the best solution. I was forced to use the weekend rate I wanted to avoid and left with currency I wanted spend away

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This is really weird.

This is what the Revolut support operator wrote to me on chat (bear in mind she has no experience with Japan).

If you chose “without conversion” and have enough funds, you will be charged in JPY.

At this moment this is impossible.

I don’t think it’s correct.
I made a payment to Amazon UK, so the payment was in GBP, and I had pounds in a GBP account.
However, during the payment, it converted from RON to GBP and reserved the money for the payment.
Which is not fair. I might have payments made to the EUR or GBP and I want to use that money, not the RON.

I know Amazon usually asks which currency you want to use when using a foreign card.

I usually use my Revolut card both on Amazon France and Amazon UK, and it always takes GBP (after asking me).

Same here. So does PayPal. Unfortunately on a Smartphone it is not always easy to handle those actions – I think. A desktop offers more control.

I have the same problem at home (France). Most of my cash is in Euros (obviously) and I also have a GBP account with a few pounds. I paid a 14 euro purchase through my Revolut card. It was debited from my GBP account after Euro -> GBP conversion.
In the last year, this has happened twice… I don’t understand.

Does anyone know why my card was declined? I had $500. No GBP
And tried to buy an ESTA from official site in dollars but my card got refused for not having enough funds. I thought it should have used the dollars.

Hi
I am in Japan with a GBP account. I also have created a Japanese yen account. I have only a little in my GBP account but much more in my JPY account. I tried to pay for a few groceries in Japan, also I tried to pay separately for a meal. They cost more than the GBP account has in it but less than the JPY account has in it.
The transaction did not succeed with the message “There wasn’t enough money in your account”.
Very frustrating.
Any ideas?

Check your card settings. You can choose specific accounts for each card. Maybe you accidentally restricted it there. My understanding is if it is set to “all cash accounts” it should take Yen first out of the Yen account if that is sufficiently funded. If there are no restrictions under card settings, you probably have to contact support and get them to look into it.

Sorry for the confusion, but for me it seems this functionality is limited to business accounts. Might be a regional feature? It’s not available for me.

I can choose different currency and even crypto accounts (although I don’t have any crypto currencies) to use with my card in my personal account. I’m in the UK, in case it is regional.