Revolut customers can now deposit money into their accounts… but at a price

Revolut customers can now deposit money into their accounts at over 12,000 stores and retailers in the UK.

Revolut, which received a UK banking license yesterday, has launched a cash deposit option for its 9 million UK customers. However, this comes with limits and fees.

Customers can deposit money directly into their Revolut account at participating supermarkets, kiosks and petrol stations, including stores such as WHSmith, Revolut confirmed.

This follows the outage at CrowdStrike last week, which halted a number of card payments, and the Financial Conduct Authority has also introduced new rules to protect access to and use of cash.

Under the new rules, banks and building societies will have to assess whether local communities lack adequate access to cash services, such as branches and ATMs, and offer additional services where they find “major deficiencies”.

Some 1.5 million adults spent mostly cash last year, the first increase since 2019, according to new data from UK Finance.

It says this can be attributed to the cost of living crisis, with more people opting to use cash to budget. Only 900,000 people used coins and notes as their primary method of spending in 2022.

Revolut’s cash deposit service is provided in partnership with global payments platform Paysafe.

Revolut plans to start with 12,000 locations and gradually roll out more locations over the coming months, “subject to fees and limits,” the neobank said.

The launch comes after 71 percent of Revolut customers deposited money with a bank or other financial institution in the past year, and 34 percent wanted a feature that would allow them to deposit money monthly.

How much does it cost to deposit money to Revolut?

When you deposit money through Revolut, you will be charged a fee on anything over the first £100 you deposit.

Customers can deposit their first £100 for free, but any amount deposited after that will be subject to a 1.5 percent fee.

Cash deposits start at a minimum of £10 and a maximum of £500 per transaction, with a daily limit of £750.

Customers can deposit a total of £2,250 in cash each month, while the annual limit is set at £10,000.

A customer who deposits £750 cash into their Revolut account in this way would pay £11.25 in fees and receive £738.75 in their account, as the fees are deducted from the amount deposited.

Most banks do not charge personal current account holders for depositing cash, while business accounts do charge fees for depositing cash. For example, NatWest charges business accounts 70p per £100 deposited and a ‘manual fee’ of 70p per item deposited.

Amdrew Hagger, founder of the website MoneyComms, said: ‘I’m not aware of any banks currently charging fees for cash payments to retail customers.’

How do you deposit money with Revolut?

To deposit cash using Revolut, customers need to open their Revolut app, click ‘Add Money’ on the home screen and change the selected mode to the ‘Add Money’ option.

Customers must then agree to Paysafe’s terms and conditions and enable or open geolocation sharing to find the nearest partner store that accepts cash deposits.

After the customer enters the amount they want to add, the app generates a time-sensitive barcode that is valid for thirty minutes. This barcode can be scanned at all retail partners.

Once the barcode is scanned by the cashier and the customer pays the amount in cash, customers receive the money in their account within ten minutes. The 1.5 percent fee is deducted from the deposited amount.

Gabor Hava, Head of Core Payments at Revolut, said: “Given the high demand for cash deposits among our customers, Revolut is pleased to be able to meet another product request from our customers and help people with cash access modern digital financial services.

‘Our cash deposit solution meets customers’ real needs: by partnering with an industry expert like Paysafe, we can now offer a fast, easy-to-use and compliant service that enables thousands of people to deposit cash into Revolut from multiple locations and exchange currencies in the app to send money to family and friends in other countries.

“This launch will give more confidence to anyone who has not yet considered digital financial services.”