Just as Uber forced taxis to up their game, WeWork made flex-office mainstream, or Luko, the French home-insurance start-up, made buying insurance online the norm, Revolut has clearly changed the game in banking.
But every revolut(ion) comes at the expense of something, and often of someone. What came to be called Uberisation mostly pushed hundreds of thousands of people around the world into precarious work.
In the little world of fintech and savings, every company talks about making [whatever thing they sell] accessible and about financial education. This con fools nobody: there are no doubt plenty of genuine convictions, but there is necessarily a need to make money, which is in no way a bad thing.
Especially since the main reason small investors get zero returns is that their products are stuffed with middlemen, and therefore with fees.
Robinhood, Trade Republic or Revolut (and many others) constantly trumpet this low-cost accessibility. An accessibility that is not without its downsides, as several studies on Robinhood have shown, pointing to market manipulation and addiction. But these so-called low fees are just a facade, since the displayed commission (sometimes zero) is only the tip of the iceberg of what the company really earns.
Regulators must act, and fast. The AMF cannot just tell people to read the execution terms.
Apart from the clown who wrote it, and the clown at the AMF who received it, who has ever read the execution policy of Revolut Trading Ltd., the Revolut subsidiary in charge of trades, whose hard-to-find 1,800-word text is not even translated into French?
Asked for comment, the ACPR, the Banque de France’s banking supervisor, and the AMF did not respond.
EDIT 13 September 2024: the ACPR replied but did not wish to comment.
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