Revolut problems

Has anyone had problems with the exchange rate from Revolut?

I checked the exchange rate before buying an iPhone from Apple UK on Sunday.

£799 GBP was €898.82 EUR and I made the purchase immediately but the amount charged was €908.19.

I've been on to Revolut but they're claiming there's a weekend rate levy due to the markets being closed but I don't accept this - the in-app calculated amount should apply.

I'm getting nowhere with online support so thinking of making a formal complaint.

Has anyone had similar issues?

If you are buying something in sterling, why did you not exchange it from euro to sterling first and then purchase in sterling?

To be fair its in their FAQ's .....
https://www.revolut.com/ie/faq#what-exchange-rate-will-i-get
At the weekend (Friday 23:59 - Sunday 23:59) we apply a small mark up on the spot rate as the Forex markets are closed. We take the rate from Friday 23:59 and apply a 0.5% mark up on major currencies and 1.0% on other currencies to protect the company from potential losses due to a large fluctuation in the rate. For illiquid currencies like Russian Ruble and Thai Baht, there is 1.5% mark up on weekend.

I don't think making a complaint will make any difference..

It looks like you got the conversion rate to convert GBP to EUR, but then you converted EUR to GBP. There's a full 1% difference in the rates used in your numbers above which is the 0.5% each side of the mid market rate from Friday night.
If they converted EUR 898.82 to GBP 799 for you they would be losing money as it would work out less than the market rate.

I've been using Revolut for two years and never had this problem before - I just have a euro balance and let the prevailing exchange rate apply. I always check the conversion rate before and the same rate is applied.

I also checked the reverse - allowing the default € currency on top and £ below and entered the sterling value.

Why didn't the realtime rate apply? And how can the rate be checked in advance if it's ultimately wrong?

There's only a difference at the weekends when markets are closed. If you check it now, both ways, there won't be a noticeable difference. But if you do the same on Saturday, there will be a 1% difference.

The rate is fixed for the whole weekend, so you can check it before you spend your money, you just need to check it the right way around.

RedOnion said:

There's only a difference at the weekends when markets are closed. If you check it now, both ways, there won't be a noticeable difference. But if you do the same on Saturday, there will be a 1% difference.

The rate is fixed for the whole weekend, so you can check it before you spend your money, you just need to check it the right way around.

Click to expand...

I checked the conversion amount immediately before making the purchase, which was on Sunday - £799 GBP = €898.82 EUR. The amount charged was €908.19.

Is it beyond reason to expect the in-app figure to be accurate? If not possible, the calculator should be disabled at weekends as it's inaccurate and misleading.

I always convert euro to sterling when the rate is favourable i.e. during the week the rate on Revolut was €1=.8989 when I converted €250 to £224.73. Thus I have my conversion locked in and when I want to but something, be it at the weekend or whenever, I just pay in sterling and don't have to worry about the vagaries of currency fluctuations on a particular day. Similarly I converted euro to dollars last month when the rate exceeded €1=$1.20 which it hadn't done for years (and hasn't since!!).

The advantage of Revolut is that you can have multiple currencies in your 'wallet' at the same time. Keeping all of your balance in euro and only getting the prevailing rate is too much of a lottery for me.

I'm not justifying what Revolut are doing, or if their app is clear enough, but just what happened.

There are 2 questions you could ask:
1. How much EUR will I get for selling GBP 750?
2. How much EUR will it cost me to buy GBP 750?

By default, Revolut answers the first question. But you processed the second.

When they use live pricing the difference between them is 0.02%. At the weekend it's 1%.