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Revolut has a history of being both halfarsed and shady in 2018 they turned off basic money laundering detection in 2019 they used job applicants as free labo

Revolut has a history of being both halfarsed and shady in 2018 they turned off basic money laundering detection in 2019 they used job applicants as free labour to get people to sign up. in 2023 they didn't freeze accounts they were supposed to when asked by the NCA (the uk's equivalent of the FBI, kinda) again in 2024 they came bottom in the league table for reported fraud(action fraud). They had 10k reports, ahead of barclays, which at the time had a much large amount of active users. Again in 2024, they also had the highest push payment fraud reports. now, this _could_ be bad controls, user incompetence, or data leak. it could be argued that they were part of the reason for the rule changes, meaning that banks are now 50/50 liable for this kind of fraud. Either way, they have a history of being shady/incompetent/bastards. They've also only been a fully licensed bank for ~6 months.

rawland 19d ago
That's some background. Thanks. My speculative mental model so far was: They fired the dept which was handling those "emails" and did let some agents handle it. Which backfired and seems to fit that history you presented.
- sam_lowry_ 19d ago
  Revolut is also run by a Russian with deep connections to wartime Russian elites, starting with his dad, who heads the biggest Gazprom R&D center.
  - barrenko 19d ago
    Yeah, not sure if Revolut is the fintech that's portrayed in the last season of The Industry.
    - rvba 19d ago
      That was Wirecard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal
wasfgwp 19d ago
> been a fully licensed bank for ~6 months They had an EU license in Lithuania for years.
- jbs789 19d ago
  Not a bank until 2018 And they clearly figured that was easier than going through the UK where they had previously been licensed
  - wasfgwp 19d ago
    No, they had a standard bank license, no different than any other bank operating in the country. Of course it was only valid in the EU not Britain. https://www.lb.lt/en/news/banking-licence-granted-to-revolut-bank-uab https://www.lb.lt/en/news/banking-licence-granted-to-revolut... edit: Comment no longer makes much sense after the one above was edited
    - ExpertAdvisor01 19d ago
      They had an emi license before .
    - KaiserPro 19d ago
      my understanding is the full licences was only granted in 2021 in the eea and 2026 in the UK
  - olejorgenb 19d ago
    7-8 years surely qualify as "for years"?
    - KaiserPro 18d ago
      only since 2021, so a few years. but compare that to their competitors who got a license at the very start
tancop 19d ago
Only one of them is directly harmful to users (the job applicant scheme). Everything else is enabling their own users to break the law only if they want to, and I think that is a good public service. Of course it might hurt legit users by making other banks treat Revolut as suspicious but im not sure if thats enough to outweigh the positive. Data breaches and cancelation fees, on the other hand...
- KaiserPro 19d ago
  > Only one of them is directly harmful to users You do understand what push fraud is right? One person lost ~£160k, a large chunk of it waiting for a human to answer. also, its not like there aren't alternatives.

rawland 19d ago

That's some background. Thanks. My speculative mental model so far was: They fired the dept which was handling those "emails" and did let some agents handle it. Which backfired and seems to fit that history you presented.

sam_lowry_ 19d ago
Revolut is also run by a Russian with deep connections to wartime Russian elites, starting with his dad, who heads the biggest Gazprom R&D center.
- barrenko 19d ago
  Yeah, not sure if Revolut is the fintech that's portrayed in the last season of The Industry.
  - rvba 19d ago
    That was Wirecard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal

wasfgwp 19d ago

> been a fully licensed bank for ~6 months They had an EU license in Lithuania for years.

jbs789 19d ago
Not a bank until 2018 And they clearly figured that was easier than going through the UK where they had previously been licensed
- wasfgwp 19d ago
  No, they had a standard bank license, no different than any other bank operating in the country. Of course it was only valid in the EU not Britain. https://www.lb.lt/en/news/banking-licence-granted-to-revolut-bank-uab https://www.lb.lt/en/news/banking-licence-granted-to-revolut... edit: Comment no longer makes much sense after the one above was edited
  - ExpertAdvisor01 19d ago
    They had an emi license before .
  - KaiserPro 19d ago
    my understanding is the full licences was only granted in 2021 in the eea and 2026 in the UK
- olejorgenb 19d ago
  7-8 years surely qualify as "for years"?
  - KaiserPro 18d ago
    only since 2021, so a few years. but compare that to their competitors who got a license at the very start

tancop 19d ago

Only one of them is directly harmful to users (the job applicant scheme). Everything else is enabling their own users to break the law only if they want to, and I think that is a good public service. Of course it might hurt legit users by making other banks treat Revolut as suspicious but im not sure if thats enough to outweigh the positive. Data breaches and cancelation fees, on the other hand...

KaiserPro 19d ago
> Only one of them is directly harmful to users You do understand what push fraud is right? One person lost ~£160k, a large chunk of it waiting for a human to answer. also, its not like there aren't alternatives.