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About Monese and Revolut
Monese and Revolut are two UK-based challenger banks born and bred in London’s financial district. Both companies aim to develop digital financial services that transform traditional methods of banking, to suit the needs of modern day consumers.
Estonian entrepreneur Norris Koppel decided to launch Monese as a solution to negative encounters with traditional banking in Britain that he had suffered first-hand upon arrival in the country. Having had an application for a UK high-street bank account refused, due to a lack of local proof of address or credit history, Koppel became keen on the idea of creating an all-inclusive, instant-to-open mobile banking service for others like him.
Monese is designed to cater to customers who need to open a UK banking account but do not have a local address or credit history. The bank offers users “an instant account for mobile people” thanks to a sign-up process that takes a mere 120 seconds to complete. Officially launched in 2015, the challenger bank primarily focuses on helping users manage their money, get paid into a UK account, as well as shopping and sending money abroad cheaply.
Revolut was also founded in 2015, as another mobile-operated challenger bank. The brainchild of Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, from Russia and Ukraine respectively, the bank’s business model is similar to Monese, but there are some key differences too.
Namely the concept for Revolut, which was originally designed to be a widely accessible pre-paid travel card offering competitive FX rates for those making frequent, regular overseas payments. The company has grown into a full-service provider offering digital banking in the form of GBP and EUR bank accounts, stock and cryptocurrency trading, in addition to international transfers.
In this review we will look into the key features of each brand, as we decipher who is the better money transfer operator.
Which brand has lower fees?
In this section we will be assessing the fee structure of both brands, as well as the overall cost of their international transfer services.
When setting up a money transfer with Monese, the company makes a point of clearly displaying all fees to help customers understand the cost.
These fees vary and are determined by account type:
Classic Account: customers are charged 0.5% of the transfer amount (or a minimum of £2.00 GBP or equivalent) when sending money to a non-Monese account
Simple Account: customers will be charged 2% of the transfer amount (with a minimum of £2.00 GBP or equivalent) when sending money to a non-Monese account
Premium account: these customers benefit from a fee-free service
✅ Verdict: Revolut takes the win
Although Revolut has a somewhat more complicated fee structure, the cost incurred are lower overall, with Revolut customers spending less on fees than Monese customers.
Which brand offers better exchange rates?
Finding the most competitive foreign exchange rate is the best way to keep costs down when sending money overseas.
Monese is transparent about their exchange rates, clearly displaying all available foreign currencies through their helpful money transfer tool.
Although the company strives to match the mid-market rate, most currency pairings still incur small markups, which vary depending on the account held with the bank.
On average, markups to most currencies appear to be 1 – 3% above the mid-market rate; more competitive than traditional high street bank markups of 4 - 6%.
✅ Verdict: Revolut provides more competitive exchange rates
Revolut works hard to match the mid-market rate as closely as possible for those making international payments. For this reason, customers will receive a more competitive price for their foreign currency transfer when using Revolut, rather than Monese.
Which brand covers more locations?
The location coverage and global reach of a money transfer company is often a deciding factor for many customers sending funds overseas.
Monese accounts are available to customers in the following 9 European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the UK.
The bank is looking to expand into more international markets.
Sending currencies are limited to EUR, GBP and RON, but there are 34 different receiving currencies to choose from.
✅ Verdict: Revolut has to be the winner of this round
Monese is committed to offering their services to customers who do not have a local address or credit history in their country of residence, however, it does not currently support as many international destinations or currencies for money transfers.
Which is faster?
Next we will be taking a closer look at the estimated time frames for Monese and Revolut international transfers.
The following delivery options are available to Monese customers:
Money transfers made within the UK using the Faster Payments option will be delivered instantly
International transfers sent to SEPA countries before 11 a.m. Central European Time (CET) will be processed the same day; after 11am the transfer will take 1 business day to arrive
International transfers outside of the SEPA zone will take around 2 - 4 days to arrive
✅ Verdict: Monese transfers are generally faster
According to our research, Monese payments are processed within 1 - 2 days which is faster and more reliable than the wide window of 2 - 5 days for Revolut transfers.
Which brand offers more transfer and payment options?
In this section we will address the different types of transfers available to Monese and Revolut customers, as well as the various ways to make payment.
The following transfer options are available to Monese customers:
Domestic bank transfers
International bank transfers
Bank deposit is also the only accepted form of payment for Monese transfers.
✅ Verdict: Revolut is the clear winner here
With multiple transfer and payment options to choose from, Revolut beats Monese in this round.
What do users have to say about each brand?
These challenger banks primarily function as mobile-based entities, so online feedback about the Monese and Revolut apps should help us understand the full scope of both companies.
On the Google Play Store, Android users have given the Monese app a respectable rating of 4.4 out of 5. Over on the App Store, it has received an impressive 4.8 out of 5. These high ratings indicate Monese lives up to expectations as a useful mobile banking app.
Elsewhere, Monese has achieved an overall rating of 3.5 out of 5 on TrustPilot, with more than 21,500 customer reviews. Positive comments include compliments about how useful and convenient the mobile app is, as well as praise for the easy sign up process.
The majority of negative feedback comes from customers whose accounts were unexpectedly blocked or frozen.
Despite this sub-par Trustpilot ranking, Monese has received a number of awards from peers in the industry, including the coveted title of Best Challenger Bank at the 2016 European Fintech Awards.
✅ Verdict: Revolut users seem happier overall
Monese does not have a poor reputation by any means, but compared to Revolut, who appears to have won over customers and industry critics alike, the bank has some catching up to do.
What brand offers better ease of use, accessibility, transparency & security?
In order to identify the leading advantages and disadvantages of each brand, we will be looking at these four key attributes.
Ease of use: Optimised for mobile use, this challenger bank functions as a well designed and intuitive application which can be downloaded on Android or iOS devices.
Accessibility: As a challenger bank borne out of mounting frustrations related to the lack of accessibility of traditional legacy banks in the UK, Monese has a fast and easy, user-friendly sign-up process that supports multiple languages.
Security: Monese is a safe, fully licensed bank and registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. The company is also a registered electronic money institution (EMT) that adheres to electronic money and payment regulations. Further to this, Monese offers single-device access, secure login and multi-factor data encryption and authentication protocols.
Transparency: Monese ensures transparency throughout their money transfer process by displaying the fees and other costs. However, a number of online reviews report poor lack of communication and failure to explain account closures and delayed payments have let the company down.
✅ Verdict: Both are excelling in all four areas
Due to the innovation and hard work at play behind the scenes at these challenger banks, both companies appear to be at the top of their game when it comes to these four properties.
Additional features
In this section we will be taking a final look at any further distinguishing features such as loyalty programs, monthly incentives, or international travel perks associated with each brand.
Prepaid multi-currency cards for easy overseas spending
Spending Overview Tool helps users stay on top of finances and set up daily, weekly or monthly spending budgets
Saving Pots to help build savings
Apple Pay and Google Pay supported
Customers can merge their PayPal and Monese accounts
Customers can collect and keep track of their Avios points when purchasing from select stores
✅ Verdict: Monese wins here, but only just
Both brands offer customers a great range of fun and useful additional functions, but Monese is better positioned to offer customers intuitive spending and saving features.
Case study: sending money overseas
In this section we will be using both apps to carry out a case study that looks at how well Monese and Revolut handle transferring the value of £200, £1,000 or £20,000 (or equivalent) overseas; how long will it take? What exchange rates are used? What are the total fees? We investigate
£200 = €228.12
Total fees £0.00 - 5.00 depending on price plan
Exchange rate spread 2.6%
Transfer speed unavailable
£1,000 = €1,140.88
Total fees £0.00 - 25.00 price plan dependent
2.6% exchange rates spread
transfer speed unavailable
£20,000 = €23,400.57
Total fees £0.00 - 500.00 depending on membership,
exchange rate spread 0.025%
transfer speed unavailable
✅ Verdict: Revolut stands head and shoulders above Monese
In this case study Revolut performs incredibly well, offering fee-free transfers for each scenario and extremely competitive exchange rates. On the other hand, Monese transfer fees vary greatly, depending on the type of account held with the bank, and the exchange rates are relatively low but nowhere near as competitive as Revolut.
Bottom line - who is better?
Both brands are making waves in the money transfer world, but Revolut is definitely making a bigger impression when it comes to affordable, secure and globally accessible services, with plenty of added features.
However, if you are based outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) countries, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, Japan and the United States, Revolut is not a viable option.
Instead, we recommend Monese or one of the other Revolut alternatives. Check out our comparison tool too, to find out more about the operator that best serves your particular transfer corridor.
Additional support from MoneyTransfers.com
We have also written detailed individual reviews of Monese and Revolut, for our users to get a full sense of these challenger banks. Elsewhere on the site we have many useful Money Transfer Guides that touch on everything from Challenger Banks, to Wire Transfers, to Forward Contracts. Our comparison engine is available site-wide, to help our users browse the best money transfer options available to them.
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