“In Malta, we currently have 120,000 customers signed up to Revolut, which means that around one in four residents is a Revolut customer,” Ms Lavezzi says. The Maltese population is estimated to be around 460,000.

“We are very proud of this achievement since it shows that our product is appreciated by the local community and recognised as reliable and effective for their needs,” Ms Lavezzi adds.

Due to the small size of the island and tight-knit communities, the power of word of mouth in Malta is especially strong, which characteristic appears to be one of the main drivers of Revolut. Despite the growth, the fintech is considering establishing partnerships with local players to fuel expansion further.

“The exponential growth in the island is largely due to the word of mouth, however, we want to grow further in Malta and are already evaluating collaborations with local players to strengthen our presence and improve Maltese people’s everyday life from a financial perspective,” Ms Lavezzi concludes.

The post Revolut signs up 120,000 customers in Malta and counting first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Standard customers are capped at three free trades per month, while premium customers can carry out eight free trades per month. Any additional trade beyond this limit will be charged at £1 (€1.13 at the time of publication) per trade.

Stock trading was made available to metal customers last month, enabling them to buy and sell 300 US stocks directly from the Revolut app. Revolut Metal customers can now make unlimited free trades per month.

Today’s launch also sees the addition of 150 more UUS stocks for customers to choose from, including companies like Twilio, Worldpay and Groupon. Revolut customers can now access over 450 US stocks and download monthly statements directly from within the app.

Standard, premium and metal customers are charged 0.01% annual custody fee, based on the value of a customer’s portfolio.

Revolut also notes that its users can buy only fractions of a single share, should the per-share price of a company they are planning to invest in — such as Amazon — be so high that they cannot do so. Instant market orders allow Revolut customers to buy or sell a share, or a fractional share, at its current market value with real-time price updates and stock performance data.

“We’re delighted to provide even more people with access to the stock market and make financial services more inclusive, innovative and affordable. We’ll continue to build on the trading product, rolling out access to different markets and products in the near future,” said Andre Mohamed, Head of Wealth and Trading at Revolut.

The post Revolut launches trading feature in 26 markets, including Malta first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“Fintech is truly revolutionising the way we deal with money and do business. Continuing to use its considerable resources, deVere has proven to be one of the global leaders in this exciting and burgeoning sector — and it is a pleasure to be joining their teams across the world as we move ahead into the next chapter in the success story,” Mr Litsikakis commented.

The initial primary focus of Mr Litsikakis, who starts with immediate effect and who will report directly to CEO Nigel Green and COO Beverley Yeomans, will be deVere Vault; the firm’s global multicurrency e-money app. Users of deVere E-Money’s app and its Prepaid Mastercard can spend, receive, store and transfer money in up to 27 different currencies.

“We are delighted to welcome someone of Dimitris’ calibre, expertise and experience to the company to help us develop our financial technology propositions even further,” says CEO Nigel Green. “Fintech is a major growth area of our business model — we understand and value that there is a growing need and want for it in an increasingly globalised and digitalised world. “Dimitris will help us dominate the market moving forward.”

“I am looking forward to expediting current enhancements and developments to the product in order to further enhance the client experience. In addition to this, one of my first tasks will be looking at B2B opportunities and looking at other ways to differentiate this already much in-demand e-money app,” added Mr Litsikakis.

The post New fintech head comes to deVere Group from Revolut first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

With the delayed deadline for a Brexit deal to 31 October, uncertainties around the United Kingdom leaving the bloc have not settled yet. Nevertheless, Revolut says they prepared for any possible scenario. “If the United Kingdom and the European Union strike a deal, or if there’s a period of transitional relief, then we would continue to passport our UK-authorised permissions — via Revolut Ltd — across Europe, and there would be no action required on our customers’ side,” Mr Litsikakis tells BM.

Should the two parties be unable to reach a deal, Revolut has plans in the pipeline. Last year, Revolut Payments UAB was set up in preparation for a no-deal Brexit scenario. Revolut says that although this entity is fully operational, it is only a precautionary measure, for now. “We are pleased to confirm that this new entity is now in beta phase. As we all sit and wait to see what happens, mitigating any disruption to your services is our paramount concern. We will only switch our EEA-based customers over to this new entity in the event of a no-deal scenario,” the country manager responsible for Malta says.

Although an uncertain environment might linger on until at least the 31 October deadline, Revolut says that European customers should rest assured. “We want to assure all of our customers in Europe that we have taken the necessary preparations to ensure that they can continue to use Revolut in the same way, whatever the outcome,” the country manager underscores.

A market of ‘phenomenal’ growth

It is almost impossible to line up for payment at any POS in Malta, seeing not a single individual flashing a Revolut card. It is equally unlikely to carry out a conversation with acquaintances without bumping into Revolut card holders, or people who have at least heard about the concept. What makes the Maltese land such fertile soil for a fintech company such as Revolut?

“The Maltese market is extremely important to Revolut due to a large number of expats, migrant workers and professionals transferring money in and out of the country. So far, Revolut has proved to be incredibly popular in Malta, with over 90,000 customers signed up to date, that is around one-fifth of the population. We are signing up around 200 customers per day and only expect that to increase. Six months ago we only had around 30,000 customers in Malta, so the growth has been phenomenal,” Mr Litsikakis says.

“Revolut has proved to be incredibly popular in Malta, with over 90,000 customers signed up to date, that is around one-fifth of the population. We are signing up around 200 customers per day,”

says Revolut’s Dimitris Litsikakis.

Revolut believes its popularity lies in the “modern design” that their mobile application offers for users, as well as the fact that they issue no hidden fees and sport responsive customer service. Additional features such as instant payment notifications, automatic spending categorisation, budgeting tools, spare change saving and enhanced security further boost their prestige in the eyes of users, the company believes.

Furthermore, Revolut allows users to buy and sell a selection of cryptocurrencies, as well as to get pay-per-day travel insurance through their app. Registration for a Revolut account takes places in approximately ten minutes, and once an account is opened, users can send, spend and exchange 29 currencies in-app and spend fee-free globally in over 150 currencies, up to a threshold of £200 every month on the free plan.

Revolut’s expansion comes in a time when people appear, albeit slowly, to become more open to fintech solutions, as well as they are becoming more conscious about taking elevated control over their finances. “Fintechs are gaining in popularity across the world due to a growing shift of consumers using their phones to handle their finances and demanding more from their banks. They are no longer happy to accept rubbish exchange rates and monthly fees. Fintechs, such as Revolut, offer an alternative to the big banks,” Mr Litsikakis says.

For fuelling further growth, Revolut is planning to host more RevRally [awareness-raising promotional] events this year in Malta to encourage more consumers to open accounts with the company. “In Europe, we currently have over 4.6 million customers and are building a European Growth Machine that will help us scale at speed in every European country where Revolut’s service is currently available to further boost our customer numbers,” the country manager tells BM.

Additionally, Revolut aims to grow out of Europe. They expect to expand into a number of global markets in the coming months, with foreseen launches in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand planned in 2019.

Revolut insists on unshaken compliance

The Telegraph broke the news on 28 February that Revolut was “accused of violating basic banking rules by failing to block thousands of potentially suspicious transactions on its platform,” the report writes. Citing documents The Telegraph says had acquired, the online daily reported that Revolut switched off its system flagging suspicious transfers.

This was briefly followed by news that CFO Peter O’Higgins had resigned from his position at the company. On top of this, Revolut ran into technical issues on 1 March, affecting their app’s functionality including top-ups, exchanges and other features. Revolut’s engineers fixed the issues in a matter of minutes. Nevertheless, some Maltese customers, reading international news and swiftly jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions, ran to ATMs quickly withdrawing money, in the belief that Revolut was going down.

Nikolay Storonsky, the founding CEO of Revolut, soon after the news broke denied reports suggesting that his company would have been involved in activities raising the issue of possible “money laundering”. He also said that no connection could be found between the resignation of his company’s finance chief and the alleged “money laundering”, despite what news reports suggested.

Business Malta asked Revolut to explain the events of end-February and early-March from their perspective. “In the middle of last year, we rolled out a new sanctions screening system in parallel with our existing systems and controls. The new system required recalibration on the basis that it was creating some false positive cases (pending payments),” Mr Litsikakis tells BM about the roots of the events. During this period, Revolut says their 200-strong compliance team reviewed all payments on their platform. “The new system and subsequent recalibration had nothing to do with money laundering, and we want to make it abundantly clear that there were no breaches,” Mr Litsikakis puts his feet down.

“The new system and subsequent recalibration had nothing to do with money laundering, and we want to make it abundantly clear that there were no breaches,”

says Revolut’s Dimitris Litsikakis.

By the second week of March, the Telegraph substantially amended its article and issued a correction statement both online and in their print edition related to news they broke about Revolut.

“We would like to clarify that there never was any lapse in our anti-money laundering controls or our sanction screening process. It is also important to note that a number of articles erroneously conflated our anti-money laundering systems and our sanctions screening process,” Mr Litsikakis insists.

Business Malta was interested to learn about the magnitude of cash withdrawal in Malta at the time of unfavourable news stirring waters among its local users about the company; however, Revolut declined to disclose figures. “We do not share details of how much money is deposited in Revolut,” the company says.

The post Revolut readies intact services regardless of Brexit outcome, eyes further expansion first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Mr Storonosky claims that last July Revolut rolled out a “more advanced sanctions screening system in parallel” with existing controls, as an attempt to improve their system and processes. However, being unsatisfied with the results of the initial tests, Revolut decided to temporarily revert to existing controls.

“At no point during this time did we fail to meet our legal or regulatory requirements,” Mr Storonosky writes in his blog entry. “We conducted a thorough review of all transactions that were processed during this time, which confirmed that there were no breaches.” The founding CEO insists that no breach of any sanctions or money laundering laws and requirements occurred, therefore they did not send a formal notification to the regulator.

The Telegraph broke news on 28 February that Revolut was “accused of violating basic banking rules by failing to block thousands of potentially suspicious transactions on its platform,” the report writes. Citing documents The Telegraph says had acquired, the online daily reports Revolut switched off its system flagging suspicious transfers.

Less than a day after Revolut made headlines accompanied by the words “money laundering”, CFO Peter O’Higgins resignation roared through the media, in some places appearing to suggest connections between the two. Mr O’Higgins had been with the company since 2016.

“Yesterday, it was reported that my friend, Peter O’Higgins, would be stepping down as our Chief Financial Officer after three years at the helm. During his time with us, Peter has scaled our operations and expanded our team from 20 to over 800 people,” the Revolut chief writes in the blog post.

“Unfortunately, the news of Peter’s decision to resign was caught up in the above recent media coverage on our compliance enhancement roll-out. Any suggestion that Peter’s resignation is in any way, shape or form connected to this roll-out is utterly false and damaging. Peter has since expressed to me that he has been hurt by this suggestion and sad that his departure has been tainted in this way,” Mr Storonosky writes.

He also adds that Mr O’Higgins resigned because he feels that “the business will require someone with global retail banking experience as we prepare to apply to become a licensed bank in multiple jurisdictions,” Mr Storonosky without elaborating on the qualities of the future financial chief.

The mobile application-based online banking services of Revolut have been spreading sporadically in the Maltese market, and their payment method is used regularly by locals.

The post Revolut chief denies ‘money laundering’ allegations first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

BLM says Esprimi is committed to always “adding more and more innovative partners to the Esprimi Community rewards list”. Under the recently announced collaboration, members of the Esprimi Community can now redeem their community points for cash through Revolut.

“To set this in motion, community members who do not yet have a Revolut card can sign up for one for free, this way all Esprimi Community members can enjoy claiming cash rewards. Members who already own a Revolut account can go ahead and start making use of this new feature as from next week,” the blog entry says.

The Esprimi Panel describes itself as a “vibrant community of opinionated people ready to share their views on issues, trends, brands, products and services.” BLM believes that people on this online panel make up a sample which is representative of the general population in Malta.

The post BLM’s Esprimi adds Revolut to partners in Malta first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.