For more than a month, I compared exchange rates between an Ultra account and free and business accounts: there is no doubt that Revolut applies a less favourable exchange rate to paying users.
While writing this newsletter on 11 September, I redid 2 strictly identical trades, on two phones: one with an Ultra account, the other with a free Business account.
At 11:32, I make two EUR/THB transactions launched at the same time.
For the free account:
For the Ultra account:
A few minutes later, I launch a EUR/USD trade
For the free account:
For the Ultra account:
I ran this test regularly for more than a month, on ten or so currencies. I never once found a counter-example where the rate for paid accounts was better.
Going back over each transaction quote, the fees on the free accounts are indeed correct: 1% for personal accounts, and 0.6% for Business accounts (the one used in the example above).7
But what is striking is that the spread between free and paid accounts is constant on every currency purchase.
It hovers around 0.1% for CHF, AED or AUD, 0.3% for USD and 0.5% for THB.
When contacted, Revolut’s customer service simply replied that Revolut sets its own buy and sell rates based on a number of factors.
The press office was a little more precise after 2 follow-ups pinning down the problem: retail accounts get a rate set by Revolut, while Business accounts get the interbank rate. And it signed off by saying, in substance:
Whatever the plan, rates are better on Business.
When I switched my Business account to a paid plan, I indeed saw no difference in rate, which stayed better than that of the Ultra retail account. As for the differences between retail accounts I recorded this summer, let’s call it a passing glitch, or a recording error.
The fact remains that retail accounts do pay extra on these exchanges, even though Revolut advertises conversion with no extra exchange fees on its part.