Revolut – it’s now an Italian bank

Save money on charges
I have to tell you about ‘una scoperta’ recently.   I have been an account holder at Revolut bank for a year or so now.  Revolut being the online bank but did not have a national presence anywhere other than the UK (I think)  Well, that all changed recently and it opened a full Italian online banking operation (plus a number of other European fully operational online banks).   I converted to the Italian bank when notified.

This is not the interesting part.  The better news is that over the summer I had another one of those bills to pay to a comune, or a multa or something and I was moaning, again, at the fact that you always have to pay about €1.50 to some entity somewhere, or worse €1.95 in the post office or in the tabaccheria, even when I am spending the time to input the payment myself online.  This annoys me so much!  In fact, I get quite furious about it.   Banca Intesa charges me €1 every time I make a bonifico from my business account.   I see red every time.  I mean why, when I am entering the data myself on my phone and spending my time to enter the bonifico ONLINE should I have to pay €1 to the bank?

Well, the fantastic news is that I discovered, (through an AI search, ironically) that Revolut does not charge those pesky bank charges, neither for bonifici nor bill payments, nor comune payments, nor Agenzia delle Entrate payments.    I think that this could save me in the region of about €100 a year, approximately.

And besides the cost savings the Revolut app is fantastic and much easier to use than any other Italian banking app I have.  So, I am a convert.   I hope they use this as disruption to the Italian banking sector and bring some positive change because, quite frankly, the time is up for charging to send payments in Italy! When disruption makes companies more competitive and treats clients better than before, this is my kind of capitalism. (I just hope they don’t fall in line with the other Italian banks, over time)