UPDATE 24 June: Wise vs Revolut - transfer speed

Until recently, my monthly transfers with Wise (between the same two accounts) have taken seconds.

Last month’s transfer took a day, and this month’s is taking even longer. Their chatbot helpline is just taking me round in circles. Has anyone else noticed a decline in speed and service?

And before anyone suggests it, I have just opened an account with Revolut!

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Last transaction - earlier this week - I was given a message in the screen that it would take 4 hours to transfer from my UK a/c to French. In fact it took a few minutes, but certainly not the seconds I have grown used to and love them for.

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Hmmm - it just so happens I did a Wise transfer last night - no problems - it took seconds - so I’m puzzled.

Good! I am loathe to move from them as love them to bits. :grin:

From this page:

Weekends and holidays might slow things down

Once we’ve received your money, we convert it to the new currency and send it out. This is the quickest part. But banking hours, weekends, and public holidays are out of our control — so this might slow down the process.

Tip : If your transfer’s urgent, plan around weekends and public holidays.

It’s a bank holiday weekend - Mayday. Might that have impacted your transfer?

Me too but I just spent about an hour online with their chatbot who insists that transfers from a bank to them take “at least 8 hours, usually longer” and “your money is on its way to us”. This was repeated 3 times. I expected it to start reciting the lyrics of Daisy, Daisy next…

Who knows… It never has before.

mostly (for us anyway) transfers of our pension money from UK sources to either our UK bank, French bank or Revolut destinations are made a day or two early so we don’t seem to miss out with delays.
Another possible reason is internet outages… there have been some across France in the last few days (cable sabotages) and also I believe in UK (for different reasons).

I managed to get a human response via Twitter. Wise are now “looking into it”…

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https://youtu.be/yShvgXZQBTs

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I was a big advocate for Revolut until recently. A few weeks ago they sent out a new card to replace a card (which hadn’t expired). I then tried to use it, and it wouldn’t work contactless, it then instructed you to insert it in the reader and before you had chance to put the pin in, it authorised the transaction with a signature. However, since nobody checks signatures and I hadn’t even signed the back of the card, I was effectively using my card without security checks. The song and dance to get someone at the end of the customer chat to accept the card was faulty and to replace it means it is time to close the account.

It’s the way it is in France…
No-one seems to check the signature panel on the back - in all the time I have been in France (since 2008 - so 14 years) this has been the case with all the cards we have and have had.
To be honest, I’ve never seen a (so called) crash box used in France (where the signatures would generally be compared) anyway in the 25 plus years I have been visiting France. Was always a feature in the UK of course, but never here.

There are a number of ways to contact Revolut other than in-app
Read through this topic on the Revolut Community site.
Our new cards arrived and we activated them without issue. The instructions provided with the cards made it clear that you must not use it contactless the first time - you must activate it with the PIN.

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They’re not even required AFAIK now, MasterCard guidelines were to phase them and Mag stripes out over the next few years, both my Curve and Chase cards have only my name, no card number and no sig strip. It’s voluntary at the moment I think and both have kept the mag stripe, I guess those french toll booths and the Americans and a few other places still not being 100% EMV has convinced them not to dump it entirely yet. Since the recent regulations and the EMV liability shift, I guess if you don’t put in a PIN the retailer is liable so the bank isn’t really interested in a signature anymore anyway as, as long as there’s a chip in the card they, and the consumer, aren’t liable, the merchant is.

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absolutely @kirsteastevenson
The way this matter could have been dealt with was in app. Revolut send an indicator to say that the card has bee used and the transaction detail. If would be open to the proper card holder to query the transaction within the app if it is suspect. That, together with the ability to turn the card off within the app, increases security further.
When our new cards arrived, we suspended the old ones in the app and then activated the replacements. There have been no issues. To be honest, with the signature panel on the back, you could conceivably sign it as “Roger Rabbit” and no-one would take a blind bit of notice.

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Update: still no info from Wise, but the transfer finally happened after 31 hours. Next time I’ll run a test transaction of 1€ first to see how quickly they’re working.

As a new Wise user following, ISTR, SuePJ’s recommendation, I didn’t know Wise can do a direct transfer from UK bank to French bank.

Just as well as today, I did what I’ve been doing. Mindful that if I didn’t get it done asap today, it would be Tuesday before any transaction would be done (I know my UK bank processes things on Saturdays in working hours but not on Sundays or Bank Hols).

So I did what I’ve been doing and did a payment on my UK bank’s site to Wise. Wise received it immediately. I then sent the amount from Wise immediately to my French bank account. Shocked - also showing immediately in French bank.

Just after that I discovered in Wise can actually do it in one payment not two.So I set up a dummy transaction. Wise estimated it would take 48hrs if I went ahead (obvs taking account of UK Public Holiday).

Try my way?

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I’m amazed - it’s Saturday! Certainly my CA branch doesn’t show transactions over the w/e.

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It doesn’t show the more typical transactions on a Saturday but I have frequently seen credits from Wise and other exchange companies over the weekend.

also in Revolut…