Best Alternatives to Wirecard You Should Try

10 Reviews

May 2, 2022 at 9:24 am in Money Transfers

Anyone following online transaction news will have seen that they are under investigation for fraud and that on Friday 28^th of June, any payment service connected with Wirecard was forced to suspend the operations related to Wirecard.

Wirecard Alternatives | Introduction

Since Wirecard was a major global player when it comes to card issuing, electronic money issuing, and acquiring a business, this has worldwide consequences for millions of users. It seems to have especially affected the pre-paid card users. Since most of the connected services have alternative solutions for the account funds, users are still able to transfer funds manually to other e-wallet solutions that are not affected by the Wirecard collapse.

The two best alternatives we have found are Revolut and TransferWise, which do not have any connections with Wirecard.

We will go through the Revolut solution below. If you are more interested in TransferWise, read our review here.

Revolut

Revolut launched in July 2015 and has proven to be a solid service. They moved away from Wirecard in 2018 to work directly with MasterCard and Visa as their pre-paid card issuer.

The Revolut platform is only available as an app. They do not have a website platform. Their app is very extensive and easy to use for both personal and business users. Both of these services will offer you Personal and Business accounts

The services available on their app are extensive:

• Pay and get paid
• Send money abroad
• Set up Vaults
• Set budgets
• Discover Rewards
• Pay with Apple Pay
• Pay with Google Pay
• Donate to charities
• Stay secure
• Trade stocks
• Trade crypto
• Trade commodities
• Insure your device and yourself abroad with travel insurance
• Developer APIs

If you want to create an account at Revolut, you will have to be a legal resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), Canada, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Switzerland or in the United States.

Now that the factual points that you can find on their website is over with, let us explain the user experience from the start.

Signing Up with Revolut

It is possible to start the sign-up process on Revolut from your computer as well, but if you are on a computer or your phone right now, and click on one of our affiliate links here (which we may get a commission from), it will bring you to an invite page. If you add your phone number and Accept Invite, you will get a text message to your phone with a link to the Revolut App which you can download directly.

If you are traveling or not located in your home country when you are signing up, we recommend using your personal mobile phone and phone number from your home country.

All verification of your identity and address is done on the app and it is quick, easy, and effective. And the app explains very well how to go through these steps.

When you have downloaded the app, it will ask for your legal name and address. When you start adding your address, the app will make suggestions and not all alternatives are in the app. So if you don’t see your address there, you can choose “Address is not here”, and you can add your address manually.

One thing to note here is that Revolut will not necessarily ask for proof of address. Especially if you have the same address on your phone and an alternative payment solution which you will be asked to use to fill 10£ on your Revolut account before proceeding, which you can use or transfer later. We recommend using your private payment card for this fill, which has your name and home address that matches the information you entered into your new Revolut account. This is simply to make it easier for Revolut to verify you.

The next step on the app is that it will ask for documentation of identity by taking a picture with the app of your passport or drivers’ license. Be careful that you don’t have any glare from a light source in the image, and that you have the entire ID page inside the image rectangle on the app and it will take the picture automatically when it looks good. You get many tries there to either approve the image taken or try again.

When your ID is uploaded, the app will need a profile picture of you to verify that you match the ID you submitted. This is like taking a regular selfie with the app.

Our experience was that as soon as these steps were completed, we could immediately order a Virtual Payment card on the app. And a notification that our ID was verified came in 2-3 minutes, which is extremely fast indeed. Impressive, but we have a feeling that using the same name and address on both our phone and payment solutions, helped with this. But Revolut can ask for verification of address, where you must submit a document eligible for this, to be approved.

Being able to use the account immediately, with a Virtual payment card, is a great advantage. Especially now if you are changing from a wallet that has been affected by Wirecard.

Revolut Account Options

The next step is to choose your account type. Revolut offers free accounts, but also Premium and Metal accounts. The Premium option is 6.99£ per month and the Metal option is 12.99£ per month. And you get a juicy discount if you prepay annually.

Revolut Metal

If you plan to use this account regularly, we recommend going straight to the Metal account option since the exclusive features will most likely save you at least as much money from your use, as the cost is.

A great solution that Revolut has implemented, is that when you order your physical card, you can get it shipped to most places in the world, if you are traveling or not at your home address for some reason. So even if your home address is in London let’s say, and you are in Thailand on holiday, your card can be sent to your location there. You can choose the address when ordering the card and it will be shipped for free by express. There are some 3^rd world countries they can not ship to, but not many.

Once you use your card for the first time, by using the chip and a pin code, in an ATM or store, your card is automatically activated even if you do this while abroad.

The Revolut Metal card is very cool and gives a first-class experience. The card is actually metal, contactless, and gives several benefits.

Here are just a few of them:

• A physical Metal card, weighing 18g
• Free Euro IBAN account
• Earn up to 1% cashback in any currency, including cryptocurrencies. (Capped at 12.99£ per month)
• Free ATM withdrawals worldwide up to 800£ per month. 2% fee thereafter. Max daily cash withdrawal limit is 3,000£. No monthly upper limit. (Eligible for change)
• Overseas medical insurance included
• Instant access to 5 cryptocurrencies
• 1 free SWIFT transfer per month

So, you can see that the monthly cost is easily worth the benefits, and then some.

Revolut Virtual Payment Cards

You can also set up Virtual cards for alternative uses and set spending limits on them for easy control. If you wish to share cards with family or friends, you can even get payment cards for them, in their name and set the spending limits you wish on the card. Very practical.

Revolut Currency Exchange

The Revolut platform is also amazingly easy to use for exchanging currencies. You can even set up automatic exchange actions when the rates are at a certain rate and set alarms for any currency you wish to follow.

Conclusion

Our conclusion by researching Revolut is that we are very impressed with the platform and recommend it to anyone that uses online wallet services and especially for those affected by the Wirecard debacle.

We would appreciate it if you use one of our links provided in this article since it helps cover our costs by running this website and researching solutions that we can recommend to people.

The links in this article may give us a commission from Revolut if you start using their services but using our link will not influence your cost at all. Your support is much appreciated.

Good luck!