- Revolut Metal card offers cashback, travel insurance and personal concierge
- Users can enjoy the benefits for monthly fee of £12.99
Europe’s billion-dollar fintech unicorn Revolut has continued its ambitious innovation crusade in the international money transfers business with the launch of its most exclusive card to date.
Meet Revolut Metal, a bank card that’s actually made of metal and offers a raft of benefits, including cashback in cryptocurrencies on card purchases, travel insurance and a personal concierge. Revolut has also thrown in a higher monthly limit on free global ATM withdrawals of £600 (USD $771) as well as all of the startup’s popular Premium features.
However, there’s a cost attached: customers get their exclusive metal bank card for a monthly fee of £12.99 (USD $16.69) or an annual fee of £120 (USD $154).
The new card marks another effort to increase the challenger bank’s profitability prior to its vaulting plan to extend into the United States and Asia in late 2018.
Announcing the launch, Revolut’s CEO Nikolay Storonsky said: “We are absolutely convinced that Revolut Metal will be the exclusive card of the future, and an absolute must for travellers worldwide.”
Last December, Revolut became Britain’s first online money transfer platform and digital bank to break even and become profitable, with many of its 2.5 million European users flocking to its attractive £6.99 a month Premier offering.
At the launch of the new card this week, Storonsky confidently predicted that it will further expand the startup’s already bulging coffers, even though it hardly needs more cash, having raised a princely $250m from investors in April.
Storonsky continued: “The launch of Revolut Metal is also an important step towards the company generating additional revenue, especially as we prepare to launch a commission-free trading platform and expand the business into North America and Asia later this year.”
For card transactions taking place within Europe, Metal’s cashback begins at 0.1%. For transactions made outside Europe, it is 1% and will be paid in any of the startup’s 25 fiat currencies or its five cryptocurrencies.
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out that Metal seems to be Revolut’s rival bid to its biggest European competitor, N26. And it’s a canny move: N26’s equivalent offering, its N26 Metal card, also offers a concierge service along with exclusive discounts on things like membership fees for WeWork, but it costs over a quarter more at £16.90 (USD $19.50) per month.
Storonsky and his equally hyperactive team have been unashamedly and tirelessly propelling Revolut into position as the fintech world’s jack-of-all-trades, offering everything from remittance services to cryptocurrency trading to personal loans, insurance and even access to airport lounges. In the months ahead, it hopes to unveil commission-free share trading along the lines of Freetrade in Britain or Robinhood in the United States.
As a mark of the startup’s success, it recently moved its HQ from digs in the fintech hub Level 39 to prestigious new premises at London’s famous Westferry Circus in Canary Wharf.
While some might argue that the upstart’s “do everything” approach to business risks diluting the key advantage of fintech, its narrow focus of expertise, Revolut seems unfazed. Its last funding round put its value at USD $1.7bn – quite a hike upwards from the $350m it stood at during the previous round.
If you’d like to read more about Revolut, please read our company review here.
