Revolut Review: Business banking for freelancers and small business

Who exactly are Revolut?

• Launched in July 2015
• $1.7 billion valuation (Q1 2018)
• 850+ employees globally
• 5,000,000+ retail customers
• 100,000+ business customers
• $50+ billion transaction volume | $5.7b monthly
• Fastest growing FinTech in Europe
• $336 million raised from leading investors

Is Revolut a bank?

Revolut is NOT a bank. It is an “Electronic Money Institution”.

Revolut Ltd is authorised in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011, Firm Reference 900562

Ok, how does Revolut describe itself?

Revolut for Business is a next generation business account from Revolut, used by freelancers and companies to save time, save money and stay in control.

Join 100,000+ businesses and sign-up in minutes to get unique account details, corporate cards with huge fee savings, integrations, open API and a mobile app.

• Hold, exchange and transfers in 29 currencies with the real exchange rate.
• Issue free corporate cards to employees to spend abroad with save on fees and reduce expenses.
• State of the art platform to manage all of your business finances with ease, including bulk payments and permissions.
• Individual EUR and GBP IBANs for businesses.
• Freelancer and business tariffs. Sign-up in minutes with same day onboarding.
• Open API to automate payments and connect platforms such as Zapier, Xero, Slack and Stripe.

Why is Revolut great for freelancers?

Here are some oultines of why the account would be great for your freelancers:

Money Management:

Easy Accounting:
Seamless integrations with Xero and FreeAgent
Immediate/real time reflection of transactions in accounting software – accountants no longer have to bother clients to get codes/fobs.
Batch payments: pay suppliers/staff etc in bulk by uploading a csv (in any currency) from Accounting software into the account and hey presto.
Payment Approval: (Most recent feature) A four-eye check for payments – accountants/staff members can draft payments, send them for approval to CFO or whoever and only upon approval will the payment be made.
Permissions – Accountants/staff can be granted different levels of access to the account at the flick of a toggle.
Schedule Payments

Compartmentalise:
FX –
Get the interbank rate, no fees (during the week)
Instant exchange (don’t have to call brokers etc)
100% transparency
29 currency accounts
Create sub accounts within each currency account
Example: Exchanging £100k would cost anywhere betwene £2000 and £5000 usually, with Revolut this would cost you £25. (The monthly fee up to that limit).
Employee cards –
Silo expenditure
Track/Monitor
Top up (prepaid only – don’t worry about employees overspending etc)
Offer travelling employees FX at the interbank rate when they spend on their cards. (The card knows where it is and immediately transacts in the local currency, no conversion necessary)
Receipt capture – Being tested internally – employees will be able to snap and log the receipts themselves. No more Paper. Save time and money on ops.
Virtual cards – compartmentalise online spending by having separate virtual cards for each channel
Open API
Can automate payments upon specific triggers
Perks
Worth a lot if used properly – https://www.revolut.com/save-money-on-services-for-your-business
We are just about to launch a free tier (for both freelancers and businesses) so for the time being the free tier and a free card will be the offer. We used to offer some free months but as of Monday will stop that. We will start offering different stuff again in the near future but for now we think the is pretty good.

This is all a very timely way for you to initiate the offer as it will be very fresh content. Once you have signed up to the affiliate platform, we will send you more information on all this.

Hi Ben, We know that running a business will eat up most of your time, but our business account could actually save you a whole load of time, not just money. Aside from international transfers and multi-currency accounts, we’ve built a state of the art user interface and launched an open API that allows you to connect your favourite accounting software.

Manage your expense reporting with ease! Sync your favourite accounting platform like Xero and FreeAgent, receive real-time notifications via Slack, and more – using Revolut Connect.