Revolut versus Monzo - Part 1

I've carried a Revolut card for around 12 months now, and in preparation of my next vacation thought I would check out the market to see what other offerings there are now. A forum entry on MoneySavingExpert spoke well of Monzo, so I thought I would give that a go in competition to Revolut.

I already vaguely know of Monzo, I run product management for corporate banking at Finastra and had met some of the guys from Monzo at a customer event we ran last year. Their ideas sounded great, if not perhaps over ambitious - build an open, api-based banking system from the ground up - not something to be undertaken lightly!

Anyway, let's get to the point.

Both Revolut and Monzo issue pre-paid debit cards that offer cross-currency transactions where no load is added to the underlying Mastercard rate. No more heinous fees at the Bureau de Change any more, or your bank loading the exchange rate AND charging you a foreign currency transaction fee.

The first step on the journey is to register, which you can only do via apps (available for Android and iOS). Importantly, all the servicing of both cards are done via the apps - you can't do things online (which in this HTML5 world feels strange).

Registration processes are very similar, only Revolut feels more mature - simply snap a photo of the card you will use for top-ups for example, rather than having to manually key the details in. I also had a few hiccups trying to register with Monzo on my Android app (which, when queried, Monza have accepted they get occasional issues with this on Android devices).

Interestingly, Monzo require a photo of your passport as part of the registration process. Revolut only required this once I had carried out a certain amount of payments / withdrawals.

To be dispatched the card, Revolut charge you for the card and delivery (£5 in the UK), whilst Monzao require that you top-up £100 as part of their onboarding process. Both cards arrived in a couple of working days.

The Revolut package.

Revolut's card turned up in a well designed card case; you pull on the tab and out of the other end appears your card:

Very fancy!

Note, one big difference with the cards is that whilst the Revolut card carries your name on it, the Monzo card does not.

The Revolut card, costing £5 including delivery.

So on to Monzo. Their card arrived in a rather plain envelope, containing the card affixed to a piece of paper (OK, quite a nice piece of paper, at roughly 150gsm.

The package from Monzo

I'm not sure what colour the card is, but it is very bright (think eighties dayglo peach). Removing the card from the paper to take a closer look reveals:

The Monzo Card, no cost, but you must top up £100 before despatch.

Monzo don't let you forget either that this is all in "Beta" mode. It's printed faintly on the front of the card under their logo, and more boldly on the rear:

Monzo in Beta Mode

This Beta stamp may again be a reflection on the maturity of the business, although when needed, support got back to me in under 24 hours from Monzo. A request for support from Revolut (via an in-app option) never received a reply.

So my cards are in my hands, and I'm all ready to load them and spend.

Next step will be a review of the apps and the money loading process, before the big spend - a holiday dependent upon the cards working as advertised.