Revolut is a digital banking alternative smartphone app that started life as a foreign currency exchange. They started in July 2015, and since then have attracted over 1 million customers. Revolut includes a prepaid debit card (MasterCard or VISA), foreign currency exchange, cryptocurrency exchange (BTC, ETH and LTC) and peer-to-peer payments, all with zero fees.
I came across Revolut looking for a way to cash out some of my bitcoin. I'm signed up with Coinbase, but unfortunately my bank doesn't allow SEPA payments to companies that deal with Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. I didn't want to have to go out and set up a new bank account elsewhere just to cash out a small amount, mainly because most of the banks in this country are crap, so I started looking for an alternative. Unfortunately, Wirex wasn't an option right now as they are working on setting up their banking alternative platform still, so who else is there? Enter Revolut.
I was unable to both deposit and withdrawal through my normal UK bank account, and so unable to verify my account. There's no guarantee that I'd have any success with any other normal UK bank, so Revolut will do for now. The plan is to top up Revolut, exchange some GBP for EUR, verify with Coinbase by sending a small amount in Euros and from there I should be able to withdraw to Revolut, and then finally transfer the fiat funds to my normal account. Revolut also has a cryptocurrency exchange built in, so I'll be testing that out and will post back with the results.
You have the choice of a virtual or physical prepaid debit card, both Mastercard and Visa. This allows you to spend your previous cryptocurrencies with minimal effort, or pay for things abroad with the best exchange rates. @Calluna and myself have plans to move out to Bulgaria in the next year or so, so having the ability to move through the EU without needing to worry about exchanging currencies beforehand will definitely be beneficial. There's the choice of either a free account, or premium account for just £6.99 a month. You can read more about the differences between the two types of account over at the Revolut Pricing page.
I'll be ordering a physical card next week, and also withdrawing a small amount from Coinbase to test it all out. Fingers crossed I'll be able to liquidate the majority of my portfolio in minutes in the future should I need to. I'll post a full review about my experience here in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for that. If you would like to sign up to Revolut, I'd really appreciate it if you used my referral link which I'll include below. If that's not your thing, it's still worth signing up for the free account with the regular link to test things out for yourself.
My Referral Link
Sources:
Revolut Website (https://www.revolut.com/)