Britain’s newest bank has been named in more fraud complaints than any other major UK bank, an investigation has found, as it grapples with the strictures that come with its new banking licence.
Canary Wharf-based Revolut, which was provisionally granted the licence in July, was named in nearly 10,000 fraud complaints in the past year, the BBC Panorama investigation found. That is around 2,000 more than Barclays over the same period and more than double the number of its fintech rival Monzo.
One customer, who had £165,000 stolen from his Revolut business account, said he believes company’s security measures failed to prevent the theft after finding there was no helpline to call and having to wait more than 20 minutes for support via a chat function in the app.
A company insider told the BBC: “Protecting Revolut from being used for financial crime always played second fiddle to the desire to launch new products and to get existing customers to use products more.”
Revolut told the BBC it has a “high performance culture” with an “expectation to deliver good customer outcomes” and that all new product launches involve comprehensive risk assessment and governance approval processes.
It also said it has “invested heavily” in its financial crime prevention team, which now makes up more than a third of its total global workforce.
Revolut last week said social media scams were responsible for a large share of the fraud cases it had to deal with. The fintech blasted recent measures from Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to tackle digital fraud as ‘baby steps’ and demanded social media firms be made liable to reimburse victims.
“Social media platforms not only continue to enable fraud, but…the issue is just as bad today as it was last year,” said Revolut’s head of financial crime Woody Malouf, adding that the cost of fraud is entirely borne by the victims and financial institutions, with no adequate incentives for social media companies to act.
“Their silence on this issue says it all.”
There are signs Revolut is introducing a number of policy changes as the $45bn fintech adapts to a wave of fresh regulation as part of its transition to a fully-fledged bank.
Last month the company told customers it no longer needs “good reason” to shut down their accounts. In a terms and conditions update sent to some account holders and seen by UKTN, the bank told customers that should it wish to shut their account, “we’ve clarified that we only need ‘reason’ – not ‘good reason’ [to do so], as previously stated.”
The firm told UKTN the account closure change was made to align with industry standards.