The latest move by banking app Revolut, to give Irish users Irish IBANs, is 'going to put the cat among the pigeons' with other banks here.
That's according to Daragh Cassidy of Bonkers.ie, who was commenting as Irish customers will soon get Irish bank account details.
Up to now, Irish Revolut accounts had Lithuanian account codes, with some companies refusing to pay wages into the app as a result.
Daragh told The Hard Shoulder this latest change will put it in more direct competition with the other big banks.
"It means that Revolut, now, is absolutely going to be a viable alternative to the big banks," he said.
"Before today, and for the next two months - because this rollout of Irish IBANs is going to take a short while - people had Lithuanian IBANs.
#Revolut says it will move Irish customers to its Irish branch - complete with a new Irish IBAN - within the next two months. Users have started to receive e-mails with details of the changeover pic.twitter.com/rRUzEZal3x
— Jack Quann (@jqbilbao) January 23, 2023
"Even though that shouldn't have made a difference, because IBAN discrimination is supposed to be illegal, we all know though that that wasn't the case.
"Lots of listeners who have Revolut and who maybe tried to paid into their Revolut account, or to use their Revolut account to set up a direct debit, would have had difficulty doing that.
"That is hopefully now going to be a thing of the past."
'Good for competition'
Daragh said this is good news for consumers.
"It was a barrier to Revolut really becoming a big force in the Irish banking sector," he said.
"A lot of people would have just continued to use Revolut to send money, maybe they used it when they were going abroad.
"Now I think it is really going to put the cat among the pigeons with the Irish banks, and I'd say they're not going to be happy with this news.
"For consumers, it's great, it's good for competition - it'll be interesting to see how the other Irish banks respond".
'Holding the bank back'
Daragh said Revolut does still have some shortcomings.
"There's still issues around customer service; they use a lot of automated facilities and AI," he said.
"Sometimes you do have those horror stories of people getting locked out of their accounts for, maybe, suspected money laundering reasons.
"Of course when that happens, you can't just pop in to a bank branch down the road and chat about it.
"So that is something that I think will maybe hold the bank back a little bit," he added.
The UK-based company officially began operating as a bank in Ireland last year, promising to guarantee deposits of up to €100,000.
It also began offering personal loans to customers.
