Revolut launches acquiring service for merchant customers
Revolut is expanding into acquiring, after announcing its plans at this year’s Web Summit.
Having launched its business accounts in the UK and Europe back in 2017, the fintech has since grown its customer base to half a million.
Revolut founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky
Chief executive Nik Storonsky says business customers in 13 European countries will now be able to accept card payments online directly into their Revolut account.
The product rivals payment processor giants such as Stripe and Adyen, which have notable market shares across the continent.
The technology either works like a straightforward checkout plugin, or a customisable widget alongside an API.
As well as processing payments on their end, businesses can also use a Revolut payment link to get paid. Users can currently accept payments in 14 currencies, and convert between them at the interbank rate.
“Payments sit at the core of any business,” says Storonsky. “So, we have crafted a solution that meets not only their business account demands but also their payment acceptance requirements.
“Our mission is to democratise acceptance and we are already on the way.”
Competitive?
The fintech will take a 1.3% fee of a payment to process it on a UK or European Economic Area (EEA) consumer card. For all other cards, Revolut will take a 2.8% charge.
This is compared to Stripe, which takes a flat rate of 1.4% and 20p for each European card transaction, and a higher 2.9% on non-European cards.
The digital challenger appears to have undercut Stripe’s pricing model by 0.1%. Revolut also doesn’t take a 20p fee like Stripe does.
Adyen’s current mark-up includes just the $0.12 flat rate, and no percentage mark-up. That’s according to a September review by Merchant Maverick. Which makes it a better option for businesses processing lesser, larger transactions.
Those Revolut business customers on paid plans also get an allowance of free UK and EEA card payment acceptances each month.
The roll out will start in the UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
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It’s important to say you’re comparing apples and pears here – Adyen’s “$0.12 flat rate” isn’t necessarily available to everyone as they service large enterprises with considerable minimums, so you can’t compare this pricing to headline entry level rates from Stripe (who do offer bespoke pricing at scale) and it’s also not logical to say that this Adyen rate is a better option for lesser, larger transactions as unlikely Adyen would honour it in such a case – their client profile is high volume.