9 ms·

What are the reasons one should get a banking app? I’ve never heard of Revolut or Monzo.

baby 8y ago
App only. Everything is free. Budgetting. Security. Traveling. Splitting bill or sending money. The reasons are usually infinite.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  Yeah, real blessing for travelling it seems - for last 2 years, every time we travel somewhere, we meet somebody (young, from Europe) who has some issues withdrawing money/paying with Revolut. Wasting hours running around town finding which ATM/branch would work with some obscure semi-bank account. It has its benefits, but travelling around the world currently doesn't seem like one.
  - nullify88 8y ago
    Where do you travel? The cards are on the Visa or Mastercard network so I'd expect the majority of ATMs to support Revolut.
    - saiya-jin 8y ago
      south america, asia in these cases (bolivia, argentina, indonesia were the last ones)
      - baby 8y ago
        Using Revolut and Monzo, I never had problems in South America and Asia (except for a few hickups with Revolut security options in Cancun). I've seen these kind of problems happening NUMEROUS times with plenty of different banks to me and my friends. It is just irresponsible to travel with a single bank card.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
    I travel quite a lot and I've had a few problems paying with the Revolut card, but not more than with my traditional bank credit cards (for example a few years ago, my card from a normal bank wouldn't work in Qatar, to this day I don't know why). I have learned on my own skin that travelling with a single card is not a good idea. I always have two (plus some hard cash just in case). But Revolut has became my first choice to pay abroad because it charges no commission when paying with foreign currency (I suppose they make some money by tweaking exchange rates, but so do normal banks, and I have checked in practice that Revolut is much cheaper). So even if it's not perfect, I would say travelling around is and advantage. By the way, what I don't understand about Revolut is why they never charged me the tips I paid when I was in New Orleans last summer... they had this weird tipping system at restaurants where you would first pay the raw prices, and then you would write the tip manually on a piece of paper and they were supposed to charge it later on, except they never did.
    - jmalicki 8y ago
      Completely standard in the US... I am surprised that's legal that they're not charging you for that (since it likely means they're not paying the restaurant that money)
      - sad_trombone 8y ago
        IMHO it doesn't seem legit that they can initiate transaction for X amount, give you a receipt where you can write amount Y, and then charge you for X+Y sometime later. I really don't want to deal with my bank if by some chance amount Y is not what I wanted. From my (European) point-of-view this seems completely ridiculous, since here I see the actual amount before I have to swipe/insert the card into the device. However, I completely agree with you that it's not fair to the restaurant/workers if they don't actually get the tip.
        Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
        Yes, it's very strange to me too as another European (although I did want to pay the tips and not screw the workers, of course). Not that I like tipping systems at all, I find them an unnecessary hassle for the customer and detrimental to workers' rights, but if you have to have it I found the system in Canada (at least in Vancouver) much saner: you could key the tip amount into the POS machine when you pay, or directly select a tip percentage and the machine would add the tip for you. Compared to that, having to actually calculate the amount by hand and write it with a pen in the restaurants in New Orleans, blindly trusting that they would eventually charge that amount, looked like... last century.
  - baby 8y ago
    I've been traveling a LOT (from San Francisco to Taiwan) with my Monzo/Revolut and the only problems I had were in Cancun were Revolut's "location-based withdrawal" was detecting the charge to be too far from my phone. I had to disable it to make it work.
- dazc 8y ago
  Monzo has an emergency web site where you can freeze/unfreeze your card or report stolen. Pretty useful feature if you happen to lose your phone.
SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
The killer feature for both Monzo and Revolut, is that when you use the card to pay for something, the app notifies you immediately. Sometimes it's fast enough that you have confirmation of the transaction before the merchant does. _edit_ I didn't mean to imply that this was _unique_ to only Monzo and Revolut worldwide. But it is unusual in the UK - it is it is something that regular UK Big banks don't do, or are rushing to catch up with now.
- tomalpha 8y ago
  I (think I) have that with an Amex card linked to Apple Pay. I get the iOS notification instantly when I pay for something with the card, whether in person or online. Is this something more? (I'm a potential adopter if so)
  - pbalau 8y ago
    Talking about Revolut (and I have the Metal package): 1) good fx rate, I think it's google exchange rate with no fees for converting from/to various currencies 2) really easy transactions between friends (makes it really easy to settle up our holiday bills, could have an integration with Splitwise...) 3) almost instant feedback in the app about purchases 4) really nice analytics 5) virtual (unlimited?) cards, each with their own limit: I have a virtual card for my online purchases and my physical card has online purchases disabled 6) despite what others said, I've found the customer support to be all right 7) traveling insurance 8) (don't remember the exact amount) cheap-ish device insurance (eg for my phone) 9) metal card (as in, not a piece of plastic) 10) accounts in a shitload of currencies (used gbp, euro and usd so far) 11) contactless (but well, all cards seem to be like that) 12) (not using this) one can buy crypto coins via the app
- dec0dedab0de 8y ago
  My capital one card does that too.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
fargo 8y ago
VCs paying your FX fees

baby 8y ago

App only. Everything is free. Budgetting. Security. Traveling. Splitting bill or sending money. The reasons are usually infinite.

saiya-jin 8y ago
Yeah, real blessing for travelling it seems - for last 2 years, every time we travel somewhere, we meet somebody (young, from Europe) who has some issues withdrawing money/paying with Revolut. Wasting hours running around town finding which ATM/branch would work with some obscure semi-bank account. It has its benefits, but travelling around the world currently doesn't seem like one.
- nullify88 8y ago
  Where do you travel? The cards are on the Visa or Mastercard network so I'd expect the majority of ATMs to support Revolut.
  - saiya-jin 8y ago
    south america, asia in these cases (bolivia, argentina, indonesia were the last ones)
    - baby 8y ago
      Using Revolut and Monzo, I never had problems in South America and Asia (except for a few hickups with Revolut security options in Cancun). I've seen these kind of problems happening NUMEROUS times with plenty of different banks to me and my friends. It is just irresponsible to travel with a single bank card.
- Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
  I travel quite a lot and I've had a few problems paying with the Revolut card, but not more than with my traditional bank credit cards (for example a few years ago, my card from a normal bank wouldn't work in Qatar, to this day I don't know why). I have learned on my own skin that travelling with a single card is not a good idea. I always have two (plus some hard cash just in case). But Revolut has became my first choice to pay abroad because it charges no commission when paying with foreign currency (I suppose they make some money by tweaking exchange rates, but so do normal banks, and I have checked in practice that Revolut is much cheaper). So even if it's not perfect, I would say travelling around is and advantage. By the way, what I don't understand about Revolut is why they never charged me the tips I paid when I was in New Orleans last summer... they had this weird tipping system at restaurants where you would first pay the raw prices, and then you would write the tip manually on a piece of paper and they were supposed to charge it later on, except they never did.
  - jmalicki 8y ago
    Completely standard in the US... I am surprised that's legal that they're not charging you for that (since it likely means they're not paying the restaurant that money)
    - sad_trombone 8y ago
      IMHO it doesn't seem legit that they can initiate transaction for X amount, give you a receipt where you can write amount Y, and then charge you for X+Y sometime later. I really don't want to deal with my bank if by some chance amount Y is not what I wanted. From my (European) point-of-view this seems completely ridiculous, since here I see the actual amount before I have to swipe/insert the card into the device. However, I completely agree with you that it's not fair to the restaurant/workers if they don't actually get the tip.
      - Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
        Yes, it's very strange to me too as another European (although I did want to pay the tips and not screw the workers, of course). Not that I like tipping systems at all, I find them an unnecessary hassle for the customer and detrimental to workers' rights, but if you have to have it I found the system in Canada (at least in Vancouver) much saner: you could key the tip amount into the POS machine when you pay, or directly select a tip percentage and the machine would add the tip for you. Compared to that, having to actually calculate the amount by hand and write it with a pen in the restaurants in New Orleans, blindly trusting that they would eventually charge that amount, looked like... last century.
- baby 8y ago
  I've been traveling a LOT (from San Francisco to Taiwan) with my Monzo/Revolut and the only problems I had were in Cancun were Revolut's "location-based withdrawal" was detecting the charge to be too far from my phone. I had to disable it to make it work.
dazc 8y ago
Monzo has an emergency web site where you can freeze/unfreeze your card or report stolen. Pretty useful feature if you happen to lose your phone.

SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago

The killer feature for both Monzo and Revolut, is that when you use the card to pay for something, the app notifies you immediately. Sometimes it's fast enough that you have confirmation of the transaction before the merchant does. _edit_ I didn't mean to imply that this was _unique_ to only Monzo and Revolut worldwide. But it is unusual in the UK - it is it is something that regular UK Big banks don't do, or are rushing to catch up with now.

tomalpha 8y ago
I (think I) have that with an Amex card linked to Apple Pay. I get the iOS notification instantly when I pay for something with the card, whether in person or online. Is this something more? (I'm a potential adopter if so)
- pbalau 8y ago
  Talking about Revolut (and I have the Metal package): 1) good fx rate, I think it's google exchange rate with no fees for converting from/to various currencies 2) really easy transactions between friends (makes it really easy to settle up our holiday bills, could have an integration with Splitwise...) 3) almost instant feedback in the app about purchases 4) really nice analytics 5) virtual (unlimited?) cards, each with their own limit: I have a virtual card for my online purchases and my physical card has online purchases disabled 6) despite what others said, I've found the customer support to be all right 7) traveling insurance 8) (don't remember the exact amount) cheap-ish device insurance (eg for my phone) 9) metal card (as in, not a piece of plastic) 10) accounts in a shitload of currencies (used gbp, euro and usd so far) 11) contactless (but well, all cards seem to be like that) 12) (not using this) one can buy crypto coins via the app
dec0dedab0de 8y ago
My capital one card does that too.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

fargo 8y ago

VCs paying your FX fees