Revolut from Germany to Indonesia. Bank or app?

[jstar]

Btw, Revolut is one of the few banks that never asked for scans of my ID and facial pictures etc. Nor proof of residence. Other ‘online’ banks did.

 

[pantaiema]

Hmm, I don't get the full picture of Revolut and the IBAN's.

Why would a German client (of snpark) in Germany, have an LT IBAN account in Revolut, meaning a Lithuanian IBAN? Why not just a German IBAN.

So opening an account in Revolut for foreign currency in euros, will always create a Lithuanian IBAN account in Revolut? Like the same situation for the problem of @Wayan, who is trying to get an IBAN bank account in Europe, right?

Revolut's banking license is exclusively issued in Lithuania (LT). In other EEA countries, they only have an e-money license, which restricts their operations.
If you apply from other EEA countries and get approved, you will initially receive a Lithuanian IBAN starting with LT, which might be changed later on.

Switching to a French IBAN | Revolut France

Get the answers you need for any issues or questions you may have

help.revolut.com

Can you use Revolut as a bank account?

Welcome to the Revolut blog - a must-read for money management, product announcements, and user stories about all things money.

www.revolut.com

 

[jstar]

Incorrect. Did you read the links you posted?

 

[jstar]

If there is a branch of Revolut active in a country and they have the banking license* with local IBAN’s, these are distributed automatically for new customers and you don’t go via the LT anymore. That was a temporary solution and in certain countries there‘s a backlog.

* They’re also member of the bank associations (e.g. NL)

 

[pantaiema]

Incorrect. Did you read the links you posted?

Switching to a French IBAN
"If you have recently joined Revolut, initially you will have an LT IBAN, and within 30 days, you will be asked to move to an FR IBAN by following in-app instructions."

In the past they might give IBAN with country code automatically where your account was opened. I got Revolut since their early day even before they got banking licence in LT I do not remember I ever requested to change the IBAN country code.

 

[pantaiema]

If there is a branch of Revolut active in a country and they have the banking license* with local IBAN’s, these are distributed automatically for new customers and you don’t go via the LT anymore. That was a temporary solution and in certain countries there‘s a backlog.

* They’re also member of the bank associations (e.g. NL)

Revolut is registered in England and Wales with registered office at 7 Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London, England, E14 4HD. Yet they do not have any banking licence. Canary wharf office is actually their origin, before they get banking licence in Lithuania.
Although they are located in Canary Wharf, but they do not permit in-person visits.

 

[jstar]

It’s very simple; if you would read and quote the links you posted yourself, you’d not have to squirm like an eel in a bucket of mucus to ‘prove’ you are right. Stop cherry picking.

 

[snpark]

Scary reading

I used revolut to transfer €4600 and it is missing

Brrr 🥶 This topic scares me! I’m not a client yet, but I think I’ll just pass my way and go to open an account at Monzo instead of Revolut…

community.revolut.com

 

[jstar]

Ow ow ow. So scary

40 million customers, bank licenses, and you believe that?

 

[snpark]

Did you go through it?

There's dozens of cases

 

[jstar]

Wow dozens. So 24? Over (in 2023) 30 million customers?

But seriously: Do you realize how many official and accepted complaints there are at the Financial Ombudsman of every country about the big banks? In a country as Belgium, every year approx. 1.000. In Germany that number is 27.000. The customer satisfaction is extremely low. That and the high banking costs are the main reason why the newer ‘online banks’ are so popular.

 

[Hawk256]

Wow dozens. So 24? Over (in 2023) 30 million customers?

But seriously: Do you realize how many official and accepted complaints there are at the Financial Ombudsman of every country about the big banks? In a country as Belgium, every year approx. 1.000. In Germany that number is 27.000. The customer satisfaction is extremely low. That and the high banking costs are the main reason why the newer ‘online banks’ are so popular.

I'm curious as to what you are implying. Surely it isn't that losing few thousand Euro is acceptable just because you have a lot of customers? How many complaints until it catches your attention and makes you ask what is going on? The only story I have heard is snpark's but that is enough to cause caution. Problems like these, no matter how rare, are important to people they affect and the main reason I stick to wire transfers only. Not hard to find the money in that case. I had to track one down one time and a competent banker found the problem almost instantly. Correspondent banks are still the wild card but it's easy to prove where the money is.

 

[MamangDudul]

Yeah the famous as long as it doesnt happen to me mentality. Of course it can happen right?
Millions of customers..of course it will happpen to someone right? If it is me I will just accept it.

 

[snpark]

Wow dozens. So 24? Over (in 2023) 30 million customers?

But seriously: Do you realize how many official and accepted complaints there are at the Financial Ombudsman of every country about the big banks? In a country as Belgium, every year approx. 1.000. In Germany that number is 27.000. The customer satisfaction is extremely low. That and the high banking costs are the main reason why the newer ‘online banks’ are so popular.

I meant on that forum. Did you even read it? There's dozens of posters claiming to have used Revolut and their transfers disappeared into thin air and they were unable to get any help recovering their money or even what happened

That's pretty alarming

 

[snpark]

That's just one thread on one forum btw
There's lots of threads about crap service.
Again that's just that one forum

 

[merahputih]

Bca said it's probably just slow

Coincidentally since we have a new pres now all my incoming transfers take longer

Someone sniffing around too much

So, have you received it in your BCA yet?

 

[jstar]

I meant on that forum. Did you even read it?

Yes I read all of it. And surprise surprise, you never hear back from these posters*. What a coincidence right? Not knowing if it ever got resolved. You see the same on car forums in which owners are claiming bad service from importer or dealership of a certain brand. Impossible to check but a great way for seeding doubt.

Now some bedtime literature for you:

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-4519911.pdf

HSBC charging me for unauthorised transactions

Before Christmas there were 5 payments made to play.com for just short of £900.

forums.moneysavingexpert.com

There are complaints everywhere. Against the big banks, most are about @harryopal1 ’s case that the bank refuses to compensate for unauthorized withdrawals.

*About Revolut, this is hilarious:

For those without VPN:

Almost two weeks ago, I performed a transfer from Revolut to my other Czech account. I did it before recently and no issue whatsoever. The money arrived after 5 days as it was supposed to.

But the last transfer - a little over 500 USD worth of money in my home currency, and it was over a week in already and no money received, I contacted Revolut, everything went fine on their end, as they said. I contacted the Czech bank, no such transaction was in their system, they asked me to provide transfer confirmation from Revolut. I did, the bank later said the transfer is not even in the banking system of other banks, it clearly hasn't been sent.

I came back to Revolut. I am chatting with a very nice customer support worker but it's been two days of chatting and absolutely no information has been given on the matter. Other than "relevant team is working on it" and "I'll provide an answer as soon as they give it".

But I've read that for some people, it took MONTHS and even YEARS of getting their money back... which is really scary.

How can Revolut function like this? I know they've blocked a lot of accounts and kept them locked even when documentation on the given funds has been provided.

I mean... what can we do other than wait for them, this is such malpractice of handling funds of other people and they keep getting more and more popular.

UPDATE: Today, 3 days later (2 weeks in total) - it got resolved somehow, my money was in the bank that it was supposed to arrive at. I can see people losing their funds for weeks and months - be persistent, intense, mention negative consequences, mention ombudsman and lawsuit, sharing your story online, be in contact with the intermediary banking service they use as well and provide them will the information - not in a threatening way, just to show you need the funds quickly and that you are willing to make all the necessary steps to get them. They must be dealing with lots of cases so this, I think, makes them prioritize them.

They always put the burden on the sending bank for lost money but in fact practically all of the time the internal procedures of the receiving bank are to blame. And they won’t tell you. But hey, keep on thinking there was something wrong and thanks to your threatening it got solved!

 

[harryopal1]

As with so many large institutions with dubious ethics it seems to be almost standard practice to save money by understaffing complaint resolution services where there are problems and while holding out on perhaps hundreds of cases these companies save money without payback. Unless a case attracts prominent media attention that threatens bad publicity then suddenly there is a full repayment with a statement claiming there was a misunderstanding.

Amazon, for example, are the pits. They trick people by offering "free delivery" without it being clear that in opting for the "free delivery" the customer is signing up for a membership which is debited annually. Very very difficult to find how to cancel the unwanted membership.

 

[snpark]

So, have you received it in your BCA yet?

It never arrived and no trace of it and now we waiting for the sender to cancel it to get back his money to resend it
But there is no way and no one for him to speak to to get it cancelled or even to trace it to a correspondent bank

 

[Samoerai]

Wow dozens. So 24? Over (in 2023) 30 million customers?

But seriously: Do you realize how many official and accepted complaints there are at the Financial Ombudsman of every country about the big banks? In a country as Belgium, every year approx. 1.000. In Germany that number is 27.000. The customer satisfaction is extremely low. That and the high banking costs are the main reason why the newer ‘online banks’ are so popular.

In the news recently ... tens of customers lost their saving at Bunq .. don't get their money back ... some lost 100.000 euro. Oeps!