The target is to boost the number of Revolut users in this country to at least 100,000 this year, four times more than there are now.
“The growth potential on the Romanian market is very high. Romanians want access to alternative banking services as the traditional ones come with a lot of costs (…),” Andrius Biceika, head of country managers with Revolut, told ZF.
Romania is attractive for this type of business partly because it still has its own currency and transfers to and from abroad are still used frequently, and so is the currency exchange for travel purposes. Romanians made 7.6 billion lei (EUR1.66 billion) payments at POS-es abroad last year, 20% more than in 2016, according to Romania’s central bank statistics.
Revolut makes available to smartphone users a mobile app they can attach a bank account to to be able to make payments, wire money or do currency exchanges at interbank rates. The users can also attach a debit card to their Revolut account to withdraw cash or make payments at merchants.
Revolut has about 25,000 users in Romania, one of third of whom are premium users. Standard Revolut account holders get most of the operations free and the only cost they have to pay upfront is the shipping of the card from the UK to Romania (RON27), if they want more than a virtual account. Premium accounts cost GBP6.99 per month and include everything a standard account gets plus medical travel insurance, premium card, priority to technical support 24/7 and exclusive promotions, among others.
Romania is a top ten country in Europe in terms of number of Revolut users, with UK, France, Lithuania and Poland in the lead. It is above countries in the region like Czech Republic (15,000 users), Bulgaria (11,000 users) and Slovakia (10,000 users).
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)