British fintech Revolut lands in Brazil

Just over a year after announcing Glauber Mota as head of its operations in Brazil, British fintech Revolut is finally launching its app on a waitlist basis.

In an interview with The Brazilian Report at Web Summit Rio, Mr. Mota (the former executive responsible for creating the digital banking arm of BTG Pactual, one of the leading investment banks in Brazil) did not reveal how many customers were interested in using Revolut, but said that “thousands will get access to the app every week” and that it may take some time to empty the waiting list.

With almost 29 million customers across Europe, Australia, Singapore and Japan, Revolut is taking its first step in Latin America. It is also exploring the Mexican market and aiming for a more aggressive expansion in the US, but given the size of the market, Brazil is likely to become one of the company’s primary operations.

With ambitions to become a super app, Revolut offers a wide range of products and services worldwide. For its debut in Brazil, it chose to start with an offer that not all of its competitors have: a multi-currency account and investments in crypto-assets.

“Brazilians are still relatively underserved in cross-border transactions, and we want to make this faster, easier and cheaper,” says Mota, adding that buying dollars through the app can be 3 to 10 percent cheaper than the traditional way. who top up an international debit card or use an international credit card. It is possible because the fintech spread is no more than 2 percent and the conversion rate is the commercial dollar, not tourism.

Brazilian multi-currency accounts are limited to USD 27,000 monthly; a fee of 0.5 percent will be charged above that.

Awaiting a direct credit society license (SCD) since last year, Revolut debuts through alliances. It uses Bexs’ banking services as a service infrastructure and offers its prepaid cards under the Visa flag — in the future there will also be an agreement with Mastercard.

Once given the green light to operate as an SCD, Revolut will be able to expand its portfolio and offer a digital account with more payment and transfer options.

Currently, users can make purchases through prepaid cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay and PIX, Brazil’s instant payment system, as well as make instant transfers to other Revolut customers in 150 countries and convert the Brazilian real into US dollars and then into another 27 currencies and 90 crypto-tokens.

“These features are particularly interesting for people who travel a lot, work abroad and receive payments in other currencies or even want to save money and have a small part of it in stronger currencies,” says Mota.

Revolut does not rule out the possibility that the group can also apply for a DTVM license – as it does in Mexico – if it makes sense to expand the offer in the investment area. With an SCD authorization, companies can also enter the lending market.

The current multi-currency account also has a savings feature, which allows users to set aside money for specific purposes, including those with contributions from other users. “When the person travels in a group, for example, we have a function to share account amounts,” explains Mota.

When it comes to crypto assets, Revolut’s app works almost like a mini “real estate agent”, with automatic purchase orders, recurring contributions and other features, as well as offering educational courses, with prizes for users who complete steps and pass the tests. The reward will be in the form of the Polkadot token, but eventually other cryptoassets may be added. Brazil has more than 10 million individuals investing in crypto.

According to Mr. Mota, Revolut has about 50 employees in Brazil. More than half of them are dedicated to customer service; they were trained in fintech’s global network, serve international clients in English, and will now serve Brazilians.

“Our technology, design and operations team also serves other regions. Brazilian professionals attract the company’s attention internally, and we decided to create a technology hub in Brazil to serve other countries in Latin America as fintech expands,” says Mota .